


Save the Last Dance For Me

by Passion4Spike



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Drama, Drama & Romance, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Romance, Rough Sex, Season/Series 06, Sex, Some Humor, Spuffy Appreciation Week, Spuffy Kinkathon, Vaginal Sex, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-05-15 17:02:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 100
Words: 428,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14794469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Passion4Spike/pseuds/Passion4Spike
Summary: COMPLETE. SPUFFY. Set in season 6, this story begins soon after Older and Far Away. Warren, and this troupe of misfit baddies, The Trio, has Buffy over a barrel. They’ve got video evidence of her trysts with Spike – and plenty of it. If she doesn’t do what they want, they’ll broadcast the explicit video all over the internet – everyone will know her dirty little secret. Buffy’s never felt so lost and alone and utterly ashamed. After being dragged out of heaven, her soul aches, and Spike’s the only one who can ease her pain, but her friends would never understand. While trying to help the Slayer out of this jam, Spike inadvertently reveals a secret of his own, one that he’s worked hard to keep hidden even from himself, one that will change the way Buffy sees him and change their dance forever.





	1. Blackmail

**Author's Note:**

> This story began as an idea for a 3 chapter short. Thus far, I have about 100 chapters and over 300,000 words, so if you don't like long stories, steer clear! The story is nearly complete in the writing, so it will not be left a WIP. I hope to post 2-3 chapters per week as time permits. 
> 
> Warnings for severe Riley-bashing in this story! If you like Riley Finn at all, steer clear. He will not get any breaks. Also warnings for consensual BDSM, blood play, angst, and character death. Anyone who has read any of my stories before knows that I like a roller coaster ride -- very high highs and very low lows. I hope to touch all your emotions! 
> 
> I sometimes use direct quotes from the show. These are not meant as plagiarism, but as an homage to the brilliant writers and how they developed the characters in the show. I try to give credit on each chapter when I do this, but I’m sure I’ve missed some.
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. Joss owns all. All hail Joss!
> 
> I want to thank the lovely and amazing PaganBaby for being my awesome beta reader AND creator of all banners! I can't express my appreciation for all she's done!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren, and this troupe of misfit baddies, The Trio, has Buffy over a barrel. They’ve got video evidence of her trysts with Spike – and plenty of it. If she doesn’t do what they want, they’ll broadcast the explicit video all over the internet – everyone will know her dirty little secret. Buffy feels trapped, alone, and desperate. What lengths will she go to to keep her secret rendezvous with Spike secret?

****

* * *

 

**Chapter 1: Blackmail**

 

 

* * *

 

Buffy sat down hard on the back steps of her house, dropping the small, velvet bag down next to her.  The jewels within jangled together, almost musically, but she didn’t notice. The tears she’d been holding back exploded from her eyes and she buried her face against her knees, hands clasped around her ears as she sobbed.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Nothing was working.

Nothing was right.

The memory of heaven haunted her, every minute of every day. The world was harsh. It was bright and hard and cruel. She’d done her penance, hadn’t she? Her journey had been done. She’d made the ultimate sacrifice. She’d made it through this purgatory, saved the world, saved her friends, and been rewarded. Rewarded with warmth, and light and love … but her friends couldn’t stand it. They had to get her back. They had to yank her out of that warm, loving embrace and thrust her back into purgatory … or what they call ‘life’.

The only escape she’d found was Spike. God help her … Spike. Her sobs came harder at the thought, even as her body bloomed with lust and yearning. Her mind, her conscience, dripped with dark shame for taking solace in his arms, but her body rejoiced. Her heart … well, her heart was caught in the middle. Didn’t she deserve an escape? Didn’t she deserve a few moments of bliss in this horrid world? But he was evil. Always had been. Always would be. She knew that, but … but he knew her pain. And he knew how to take it away, at least for a while.

But her friends would never understand.

Never.

And that was the rub, wasn’t it? That’s why there was a bag of priceless diamonds next to her, black diamonds. She felt a kinship to them … dark on the inside, bright and shiny on the outside.  She fumbled with the string holding the bag closed and fished one out, holding it up in the moonlight, turning it back and forth to let the light catch the facets, sparkling. Exactly like her … a bright façade hiding a dark heart.

“No fondling the merch, Slayer,” came a male’s sarcastic voice from the dark.

Buffy didn’t start, she’d been waiting for it.  She quickly swiped a sleeve across her tear-streaked face and dropped the jewel back into the bag, pulling the string closed tightly.  She looked up, scowling, and tossed the bag in the direction of the voice.

“Fuck you,” she growled menacingly.

Warren laughed, plucking the bag out of the air with one hand.  “That’s what got you into this mess, isn’t it?” he asked sarcastically, opening the bag and examining the loot.

He licked his lips, keeping the drool from escaping his mouth. Having a Slayer under his thumb was better than having a Bot. And he might just have to take her up on that ‘fuck you’ offer one of these days, but priorities. He had priorities.

“There’s another shipment coming through tomorrow night. Rubies. Get them,” he ordered, smirking as he thought of fucking the Slayer in a bed of rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. His cock grew hard at the image of her blond hair fanned out over the jewels, her silken thighs spread wide for him. He could see it clearly now, just as he did every night as he watched the videos of her with the blond vampire. He could even hear her, screaming at him to fuck her harder, just as she did in the videos.

Warren’s eyes began to glaze as he relived the scenes in the videos he’d surreptitiously captured, and he gave himself a mental slap – priorities! Jewels first. Fucking the Slayer could wait. She wasn’t going anywhere, after all.

Buffy glared at him. “How long is this going to go on?” she demanded. “I’ve gotten you a small fortune in gems already!”

Warren shrugged. “Until you’ve gotten me a large fortune … an enormous fortune … for as long as I say, unless you want those videos broadcast all over the world,” he replied coldly, turning to go.

Buffy jumped up and had him in a choke-hold before she even knew what was happening.

“If … I … die …” Warren choked out, “you … will … be … exposed … vampire … whore.”

Buffy released him abruptly, and Warren dropped to one knee, staggering and rubbing his throat. He glared at her through narrowed eyes as he rose back to his feet. “Face it, Slayer, you’re my bitch. If you don’t want the world to know about your little … _tête-à-tête_ with the vampire, then I need to stay alive and well, and you need to do as I say.”

Buffy clutched her hands into fists as her blood boiled. She needed to hit something. Hard. Now.  She took one step forward and drove her fist into the oak tree next to the geek. Splinters of bark and wood shot out in all directions as the whole tree shook, raining leaves and acorns down on them.

“Get. Out. Of. My. Sight,” she growled dangerously, her teeth clenched, barely containing her rage.

Warren did. Quickly.

Suddenly, all of Buffy’s strength waned and she dropped down onto her knees in the grass beneath the tree, her tears returning. How had she let herself get into this situation? HOW? If her friends knew … and Dawn … and _Giles_. Oh, God, if Giles found out, what would he say? What would he think of her? He’d been the closest thing to a father she’d had for a long time, and the thought of how he’d look at her if he knew, not only knew but SAW, ripped gashes of anguish in her heart.

**~**

“Slayer?” Spike’s voice was soft, but filled with confusion and concern as he approached the crumpled form beneath the oak tree.

He reached out and touched her shoulder, and she jumped, scrambling back from him, eyes wide with confusion.

Buffy tried to clear the cobwebs from her mind, looking around, trying to make sense of where she was. Then it all came back to her, she was in the backyard, she must’ve cried herself to sleep beneath the oak tree.

“Spike …” she muttered as her heartbeat slowed and her adrenaline subsided.

Spike quirked brow at her, taking in her disheveled look, the tear tracks and red blotched cheeks.  “Someone kick yer puppy, Slayer?”

Buffy rolled her eyes and got to her feet, brushing leaves and grass from her clothes. “Go away,” she demanded icily. “I’m not in the mood for your sarcastic tongue in this lifetime.”

“As I recall, seemed to like my sarcastic tongue fine the other night, you did,” Spike reminded her, running said tongue invitingly over his lips.

Spike thought Buffy’s eyes were gonna roll right out of her head at that. She huffed at him and moved to shove past him toward the house.

“What’s yer rush, luv? Not very neighborly of ya, not even offering a parched vampire a spot of tea,” he chided, grabbing hold of her arm.

“Let. Go,” Buffy snarled at him, teeth flashing in anger.

“Make me,” Spike countered, his voice low and serious, his lips curled in a smug smile.

Before Spike even knew she’d moved, her free hand came up and her fist smashed against his nose, splattering blood in all directions. He laughed maniacally and twisted the arm he still held, flipping her completely over and planting her back on the hard ground with a ‘whoosh’ of expelled breath.

In the next moment he was on her and they scrabbled against each other, rolling and grappling, strength matching strength, Buffy’s anger at the world lashing out against Spike’s demon, who reveled in the age-old battle: vampire and Slayer.

They rolled and punched, scratched and bit, first he on top and then her as they struggled, ripping clothes and flesh alike, both growling, sounding alarmingly like a pack of wolves in the back yard. Luckily, Dawn was spending the night at her friend’s house and Willow had an all-night cram session at the library for a test the next day. No one was home to hear.

And then, as if it were part of the fight, they were kissing, their mouths smashing against each other, demanding and fierce. Tongues and teeth clashing, lips bruising with the undeniable lust they both felt. Their clothes, already torn and bloody, were ripped away in a flurry of need, buttons popping, seams splitting. And then there was flesh, hot against cold, hard against soft, moonlit marble against a sun-kissed rose. In that moment of surrender as they joined, the world stopped spinning, the sun exploded, and the moon fell from the sky.

Buffy gasped and her back arched in ecstasy as Spike’s hardness entered her, driving home in one long, hard thrust, sending sparks of bliss searing through her shattered soul, filling in all the cracks left raw and bleeding by her resurrection.  She floated there, trembling, unable to breathe, unable to think, all of her internal wounds blissfully numbed with the passion of their coupling.

“Don’t … stop,” she gasped against his neck, pulling him into her hard with her heels digging against his marble-hard ass. “Never … stop.”

He didn’t.

He moved against her, her arms and legs wrapped around him, her soft walls slick and welcoming. Her warmth filled him, radiating through him, her beating pulse felt like his own heart was racing; in these moments with her he almost felt … human … alive.

Their bodies moved in unison, rising and falling, flesh meeting flesh, driving, lustful, blind. Needing all the other could give. Taking everything. Giving everything.  Demanding. Yielding. Floating. Flying. Exploding.

His mouth covered hers as their mutual ecstasy found its zenith and exploded, raining down blissful pleasure like a shower of tingling sparks over their quivering bodies.  Her scream and his growl of completion were both muffled against the other’s lips, swallowed by the night, lost in the darkness.

Darkness.

Buffy felt it. She felt the darkness seeping back in, the bright sparks of desire which had filled those fathomless crevices of emptiness began fading away again. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t hold them for longer than these fleeting moments with Spike.  She’d come back wrong, with a deep emptiness, and she didn’t know how to fix it.

The darkness brought reality back. Purgatory. Warren. Her friends. Her anger. Her sadness. Her despair.

“Get off me!” she demanded suddenly, pushing and kicking at Spike furiously.

She’d done it again! Wasn’t she in enough trouble already!? How could she do it AGAIN? Had Warren planted more cameras around here, she wondered in a panic, her eyes darting around the yard, searching as she tried to gather up her torn and tattered clothes.

“What the bloody hell, Slayer?!” Spike demanded, rolling away from her flailing fists and feet and standing up. He jerked his jeans up over his ass and tried to button them, but it was a lost cause, the buttons were long gone.

“Just … just leave me alone, Sp-p-pike,” Buffy tried to make it sound like a demand, but to her chagrin it came out as a plea, her voice cracking slightly on his name.

Buffy was standing now, too, trying to pull her coat back on over her torn sweater and jeans. He stepped forward and grabbed her upper arms and held her still, ducking his head to make her look at him. “Tell me,” he said simply, holding her gaze with his bottomless blue eyes.

“Tell you what?” Buffy countered, scowling.

Spike sighed. “Tell me who kicked yer bloody puppy.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and lifted her chin defiantly. “I don’t have a puppy. I am canine-free. You can ask anybody.”

“Right, then, tell me why you reek of gun powder, tears, an’ desolation,” he countered.

 _Stupid vampire smelling_ , she thought dourly, the memory of wresting the gun away from the security guard just as he fired returning to her at the mention of gunpowder. The bullet had gone wild, luckily striking a wall, harmlessly. She could still hear the shot ringing in her ears though, and it set her teeth on edge.

Not wanting to mention any of that to Spike, she settled on contending, “You can’t smell desolation,” in her best authoritative voice.

Spike cocked a brow, “Can’t I, then?”

Buffy remained silent. What was she supposed to say? I’m being blackmailed for sleeping with you? There’s video evidence. She knew what Spike would say, ‘Yeah? Let’s have a look, then!’  It didn’t hurt HIS reputation to be fucking a Slayer, but her friends would never understand. Never. She felt utterly alone and completely trapped.

Spike shook her gently, bringing her attention back to him. “Buffy?”

Buffy swallowed hard and looked down at the ground between them. She hated when he used her name. It was too … _personal_. It felt like … like they were friends or something. And they weren’t. They were far from friends. They were enemies. Enemies with benefits.

She snorted at her own joke, but looked back up into his eyes.

He was darkness. He never even tried to pretend he was anything else. She knew how that darkness felt. She was darkness parading around in bright, shiny armor saying, ‘Tis but a scratch,’ as she bled to death, slowly but surely. She was that black diamond. Glittering on the outside, but black as onyx within.

Spike raised his brows in question, but she shook her head, dismissing it.

“I’m fine,” she assured him in her best, bright, happy voice, forcing a smile.

“Just tired,” she continued, her fake smile cracking a bit as she pulled free from his grip. “Goodnight.”

Buffy turned and walked toward the house, leaving Spike standing in the yard staring after her, dazed and confused, as always.

 

 

* * *

 

**End notes**

* * *

 

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you’ll stop in with a review and let me know what you think! I love hearing from you!

Thanks also to my wonderful beta-reader, Paganbaby, without whom this would not have happened at all! All mistakes here are mine because I just can’t stop fiddling.

 

 

 

 


	2. Annoying Vampire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something's up with Buffy, and Spike intends to find out what it is.

 

* * *

 

 

The next night Spike stepped out from a downtown alley just as Buffy reached it, stopping her in her tracks. She let out a short, un-Slayer-like squeak of surprise, nearly running into him before she could stop.

“Where’s the fire, Slayer?” Spike inquired casually, tilting his head to the side as he studied her.  Her heart was racing, she’d been sweating, and her adrenaline was off the charts. Any other time that would be enough to rouse him to rock-hardness with just one whiff, but not tonight. He knew why she was in this state, and it wasn’t from fighting vampires or demons.

“Nothing … errr, I mean, nowhere. I’m just …” Buffy waved a hand vaguely down the dark street, “You know … Slayer stuff. Much Slayer stuff to be done. I’m being all Slayer-y.”

Spike cocked a brow at her and, before she knew he’d moved, reached into her jacket pocket and plucked out the small, velvet box hidden there.

“Known lots of Slayers, I have,” he informed her, turning to the side and holding the box out of her reach as she lurched for it, “But never known one t’ play Robin Hood.”

A stake suddenly appeared in Buffy’s hand – where the hell did she keep those? – and she pressed it against Spike’s chest, menacingly. 

“Give it back,” she demanded, reaching her other hand toward the small box that Spike held at arm’s length away from her.

“You won’t stake me, Slayer.”

“Try me,” Buffy growled, pressing a little harder on the stake, piercing his shirt and skin, and drawing a trickle of blood which welled up and soaked into his t-shirt.

“So, what is it? Realized that bright, shiny baubles were what was missin’ from yer life, did you?” he inquired calmly, still not relinquishing the jewels. “Girl’s best friend and all that rot?”

“I swear to God, Spike, I will dust you right now!”

“Right then … ‘ave at it, Slayer,” he invited, raising both hands over his head and thrusting his chest out, but still keeping a firm grip on the small box of jewels and holding them high and away from Buffy.

His eyes met hers in a challenge, his head tilted in that way that infuriated her, mocking her, as if he knew her better than she knew herself. Well, he damn well didn’t. Not by a long shot. He knew nothing. Why was she even having this conversation with him? She should just dust him and take the jewels and … and … and … and then what?  Her heart constricted, and she felt tears sting her eyes. And then she’d be alone. Again. In the darkness. With no escape at all.

“Arrgh!” she exclaimed, turning around and flinging her arms out in utter frustration. “You are the most irritating, annoying, infuriating vampire I’ve ever known!”

Spike smiled, proud of himself. “Surpassed the great poof, ‘ave I?”

Buffy made a growling sound as she turned back around to face him. “Just give me the box, Spike.”

“Ummmm … let me think …. No,” he retorted dryly. “You tell me why ya have these little baubles.”

“It’s none of your business. Give it to me,” she demanded again.

“In yer list of my finer qualities, you forgot ‘stubborn’ and ‘relentless’, Slayer. Might as well tell me, save me following you about every night till I figure it out, won’t it?”

“I need them. Please, Spike, just …”

“Tell me why.”

“I can’t.”

“Something wrong with yer tongue, cos it looks perfect t’ me,” Spike assured her, wagging his brows at her suggestively.

Buffy huffed out an exasperated breath and closed her eyes. Options. She needed to consider her options. She could stake him, that would be the easiest. Definitely the best option.  Except for the alone in the dark part of the program.  She could beat him up and take it. Not a bad option, except beating Spike up usually just lead to them having sex, which is what got her in this mess in the first place … and were there cameras here in the alley? She looked around but didn’t see any, but then she hadn’t seen them in her yard, either.

“Just tell me, Buffy,” Spike urged, his voice gentle now, all trace of sarcasm gone. His hand reached out to touch her face softly. “Maybe I can help.”

Buffy sighed and opened her eyes. His were just inches away from hers, their blue depths full of worry and concern, searching her face for some hint, some idea of what was going on. It looked … real. It looked genuine.

Since when do vampires show worry and concern for a Slayer? Since when do Slayers need vampires to keep them from drowning in the darkness?

Apparently, since now.

But it wasn’t ‘vampires’, was it? It was _this_ vampire. And it wasn’t ‘Slayers’. It was just her.

“You aren’t alone, pet. Let me help you, yeah?” Spike coaxed, opening the small box to expose the brilliant rubies within to the dim light of the alleyway.

Buffy took a deep breath that seemed to come all the way from her toes and let it out slowly, her gaze moving from his eyes to the sparkling jewels. She would go down in the annals of Slayerdom as the worst Slayer ever, of that she had no doubt. 

* * *

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

* * *

 

Buffy unceremoniously dropped the unconscious Warren onto the sarcophagus in Spike’s crypt. His head thunked on the hard surface, but she barely noticed as she looked around for the vampire.  This was his stupid plan and he was freaking late for it!

“Spike!” she called sotto voce, as if she’d awaken their unconscious guest. “Spike! God damnit! Where are you!?”

“Behind you, Slayer,” he answered in a normal voice from literally a foot away, making her jump and whirl around, fists clenched and ready to strike.

“Wound a bit tight, are we?” he teased her, adding, “I’ll see if I can’t help ya with that later, luv,” while running his tongue salaciously across his lips.

“Damn it, you’re late! Where have you been?! Warren said if he wasn’t back on time, those videos would be distributed all over the internet!” she demanded, ignoring his flirtations.

“Just had to get a thing or two I’d need, yeah?” he answered, dropping a large, very dead-looking demon off his shoulder and onto the floor. 

Buffy stepped back to keep from being splattered in blood and other grossness, her brows furrowed in confusion. “What’s that?”

“Demon,” Spike answered unhelpfully as he pulled a long knife from a scabbard at his side and began to slice the demon open at the belly, letting the foul-smelling innards spill out.

“But … what …” Buffy tried again, backing up further and covering her nose and mouth with one hand to try and quell the stench.

Having spilled the demon’s guts – very literally – Spike grabbed an axe from its place behind the door and took careful aim. He swung down on the demon with swift, accurate, and amazingly effective blows. The first blow struck at the neck, decapitating it with a sickening gurgle and crunch, then Spike opened the chest cavity straight from the neck to the already open belly, sending globs of foul-smelling puke-green and puss-yellow goo flying in all directions.

Buffy backed up further, watching in a horrified trance as Spike removed not only the things guts, but its brain, and then deboned it, all with what looked like practiced ease. Buffy didn’t want to think about how Spike knew how to do that or how he was so skilled at it, but she did want to know WHY.

“Spike, don’t you think we should have the Demon Dissection and Evisceration 101 class later? Like, when we don’t have a ticking time bomb waiting to go off and ruin my life, for example?”

Spike snorted but kept working on the corpse. ‘ _Ruin her life, would it? To be seen with you, mate_ ,’ he thought dourly as he lifted the demon skin up and away from the bones and guts with a squelching sound that turned Buffy’s stomach.

Spike’s stomach was already turned, but not from the gore. It had been in knots since she’d told him about Warren and his videos of them, and how it would ruin her life for any of her friends to find out that she’d turned to Spike for solace.

Spike had been a fool, he’d known it deep down all along, but somehow wouldn’t let the thought surface to be examined closely. She could never be with him, never love for him … not the way he wanted, not the way he loved her. But he’d kept hoping that, with time, she could come to see him as _more_. More than a vampire. More than an outlet for her lust and an escape from her darkness. More than … well, more than he was, if he was honest.

But no. That dream had been eviscerated just as quickly and cleanly as this demon had when she’d confided the blackmail to him. She must want to keep this secret very badly to actually pull-off these jewel heists, to risk harming humans, to use her powers for something other than good. He knew that would’ve gone against every fiber of her being, and yet, she’d done it, to keep him a secret. Which meant the thought of her friends finding out about their trysts turned her stomach even more.

Spike sighed and realized that Buffy was talking again, asking questions. God, couldn’t the bloody bint shut up for a minute?

The vampire picked up the demon’s head, which now looked more like a rubber Halloween mask than anything else, and carried it, along with the skin, over to where Warren lay. Without ceremony, Spike lifted the blackmailer up into a seated position and plopped the demon mask over Warren’s head, then proceeded to dress the now semi-conscious human in the demon skin suit.

Buffy felt bile rise to the back of her throat as Spike jammed the bloody demon head on over Warren’s. Liquids oozed from the mask and the stench had not lessened at all. She swallowed hard and managed, “Wha…” before her last meal returned with a vengeance and she turned to the side and puked.

“Bloody hell, Slayer! You’re cleanin’ that up!” Spike chastised.  “Didn’t take you for a poofter.”

“I’m not a poofter! Whatever that is!” Buffy retorted, keeping her eyes averted from the scene as Spike finished dressing Warren completely in the demon skin, head to toe. “But what the hell are you doing?”

Spike finally turned away from their captive and faced her, sighing deeply. He tapped his forehead meaningfully with a forefinger. “You want answers from the berk, I can get ‘em … but yer forgetting, Slayer … I can’t hurt a human. Just cuz I can hit _you_ , doesn’t mean I can lay a hand on this soddin’ wanker! No matter how much of an evil arsehole he is.”

Buffy’s jaw dropped open in comprehension. “And now … you can?” she asked hesitantly.

Spike jabbed a fist at Warren’s jaw, quick as a flash of lightning and just as hard. The demon-suited human grunted in pain and fell to the side, rolling completely off the sarcophagus with a squishy thud as he landed on the floor beneath.

Buffy looked from the fallen figure and then back to Spike, who was standing there as if he’d just swatted a fly, her eyes wide in horror. “You’ve … you’ve thought of this … I mean … you … knew how to…”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Spike retorted, cutting her off. “Thought we were on the clock, eh?

“Best take your-green-tinged-self outside now, don’t want more puke on my clean floor,” he advised, kicking at the gore-soaked dirt on the ground as he moved over and lifted Warren back onto the hard tomb, laying him out flat on his back. “Got work t’ do here, don’t I?”

Buffy stood, transfixed, glued to the spot. The ramifications of this whirling through her mind. He could’ve … he could’ve killed her friends before, or now, or anytime. He could’ve been feeding … could’ve been hunting. He could’ve easily drugged their food to knock them out and then dressed them in a demon suit and …

“Slayer, get the hell out,” Spike demanded, pulling her from her spinning thoughts. His lips were pursed as he moved over to face her. “I don’t want you t’ see … me … see this … I mean …” Spike stammered before lowering his gaze and settling on, “Just go, pet … please.”

Buffy nodded absently and stumbled almost drunkenly toward the door. The thought, ‘ _Spike could’ve killed them all_ ’, stuck in her mind on repeat, followed hesitantly by a single refrain of, ‘ _but he didn’t_.’

* * *

**End Notes**

* * *

 

So many thanks to PaganBaby for her beta skills and all her support and inspiration! She also created the amazing Banner! So awesome! I'll have more soon! There's sooo much more to come! 

I'd love it if you'd stop in a leave me a note! They're like dark chocolate for my finicky, and sometimes evil, muse.


	3. Dazed and Confused

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike helps Buffy out of her jam, but is left dazed and confused by his ‘reward’ for his efforts.

 

Buffy paced back and forth in front of Spike’s crypt, trying to ignore the sounds that punctuated the night coming from within. She knew Spike was muffling most of it, she could tell by how strangled the noises were, but she could still hear it. She should stop this. Warren was a human. She shouldn’t be condoning – more than condoning, _eliciting_ – this behavior from Spike. But, God damn it, Warren was dangerous, and not just to her reputation. He and his little gang of nerds had been wreaking havoc all over town for weeks, and heaven only knew why he wanted all those gemstones he’d been having her steal.

Buffy was so busy rationalizing her actions to herself that she didn’t notice that the sounds from the crypt had stopped until Spike stepped out into her path, wiping his hands on a towel. They had blood on them. Human blood. Buffy swallowed and looked away, wrapping her arms around her middle in an attempt to keep her stomach from lurching into her throat. It didn’t really work.

“What did you get out of him?” she asked, still looking away.

“Screams. Various fluids. And a location,” Spike replied dryly, dropping the towel as he strode purposely toward the gate of the cemetery. “His little cronies ‘ave them in that van o’ theirs,” he informed her as she hurried to catch up. “They’re waitin’ fer the tit in the alley behind the Bronze. If he doesn’t show, they’re supposed to ‘upload the files t’ the net’.

“We’ll just do a bit of a smash ‘n grab and have done with it,” he continued, his voice oddly flat and dry.

“Did you ... I mean, what did you do to him?” Buffy called after him, honestly fearing the answer. “Is he … alive?”

“Did what I had to, didn’t I? And yeah, alive as a gormless worm can get, I reckon.”

“Are you … okay?” Buffy asked as she caught him up. He was acting strangely; oddly distant and emotionless. Buffy had seen Spike in a myriad of situations and moods, but ‘emotionless’ had never been one of them.

“Right as rain,” Spike replied, still flat and cold. “On the clock though, eh? Let’s go,” he continued, breaking into a run, his leather duster billowing out behind him.

****~****

* * *

 

The van was, indeed, parked in the alley behind the Bronze. Buffy flushed slightly, remembering one particularly energetic evening with Spike that nearly caved in the brick wall on the opposite side of the alley. That was one that Warren had on tape; he had, to Buffy’s utter mortification, shown it to her.

Buffy grabbed Spike’s arm and stopped him from going into the alley, pointing up to the corner of the building where a not-so-hidden camera scanned the area. “They’ll see us coming,” she whispered.

Spike narrowed his eyes and calculated his chances of reaching the van before they actually saw him, and thought they were pretty good, but he knew that Buffy didn’t need even more video evidence of her nighttime gambits. He looked around the ground and found a stray street brick shoved against one of the dumpsters. Picking it up, he weighed it in his hand a moment before drawing back and flinging it at the camera. It hit with a sound of breaking plastic and a few sparks, and then the camera went still and dark.

“Have you ever thought of pitching for the Yankees?” Buffy wondered, impressed.

Spike shrugged. “Ate one or two back in ‘27. Must’a picked something up in the blood.”

“I don’t think that’s actually something you can catch from blood,” Buffy pointed out, but Spike just shrugged again.

“You’d be surprised. Let’s go,” he invited, ending the conversation abruptly and striding menacingly toward the van.

He reached the back doors of the van and flung them open, accidentally ripping one of them completely off in an explosion of screeching metal, and eliciting screams of terror from within.

Spike sighed and rolled his eyes as the two wanna-be tough guys huddled together as far away from him as they could get, sniveling and begging for their miserable little lives.

“Shut the bloody hell up,” Spike ordered as he began jerking out wires, smashing computers, and gathering up anything that looked like it could be a video, all while Andrew and Jonathan whimpered and cowered in one corner.

“Not that!” Andrew exclaimed when Spike picked up a framed and autographed picture of Timothy Dalton.  “Please, no!” the little blond begged reaching for his prized possession.

Spike frowned at it and held it in both hands, menacingly, like he might tear it in two, frame and all. “Give me all the copies o’ the Slayer sex tapes ya got, or this bloke is gone,” he threatened, eyeing the small, blond kid seriously.

“Okay! Okay! Please … just … don’t hurt him!” Andrew begged, holding his hands up in supplication. “There’s just one more … it’s…”

“Shut up, you idiot!” Jonathan growled. “It’s our only leverage!”

“You shut up!” Andrew shot back, scowling. “Do you know what I went through to get that autographed!? And, due to a slight misunderstanding, I’ll never get another one with that restraining order in place!”

“Moron!” Jonathan bellowed at his friend.

 “I know you are, but what am I?” Andrew retorted with a sneer.

The two boys began to scrabble and wrestle each other, rolling over the broken computer parts and other debris covering the floor of the van, screaming at each other,

“No, you shut up!”

“You shut up!”

“You!”

“You!”

“OI!” Spike interrupted, “Both of ya, shut yer gobs!” Spike grabbed Jonathan by the nape of the neck holding the small brunette up like a kitten, careful to not actually hurt him and set off the chip.

During the tussle with Andrew, Jonathan had managed to grab a bone which had glyphs and magical symbols carved into it. He began frantically stroking it and chanting an incantation as he dangled helplessly in Spike’s grip.

“Don’t be daft!” Spike advised the little weasel, grabbing the bone from his hand and smashing it with all this strength against the edge of the opening where the doors of the van had once been. It broke easily into several pieces with a loud ‘clang’ that rattled the whole van.  Dusty, red smoke emerged from the broken end of the bone that Spike still held, smelling slightly sulfuric. He tossed it far down the alley, well past Buffy, where it landed with a clatter, the red smoke disbursing harmlessly in the evening breeze. 

“My magic bone! You broke my magic bone!” Jonathan cried, horrified. “You … you, _brute_!”

Spike chuckled and rolled his eyes, then tossed the kid like a sack of potatoes out of the van toward the Slayer, who stood in the alley, watching.  “Hold on t’ that one. Lost his magic bone, he has. Shame,” he lamented sarcastically. “Must be right deflatin’, that.”

Spike then turned back to the other combatant to continue his interrogation.  “Now then,” Spike picked the framed photo up from where he’d dropped it and looked down at the inscription to get the kid’s name, “Andrew, is it? Let’s have that last copy, shall we? Then you and Timothy ‘ere can have a long and boring life together.”

Andrew nodded his head in wild agreement and reached behind one of the seats, opening a hidden compartment on the back. He extracted a box and handed it to Spike. “That’s it … those are the originals. You got all the rest,” Andrew assured him, waving a hand around at the devastated equipment and the bag of DVDs and videotapes Spike had gathered up.

Andrew reached for the picture in Spike’s hand. Spike pulled it back, keeping the boy from touching it, keeping it just out of his reach. “You wouldn’t be holdin’ anything back on me now, would ya?” Spike asked coolly.

Andrew looked horrified, his eyes darted around the van, trying to look anywhere but at Spike.

“Give it up, poof, or this bloke…” Spike finished his threat by beginning to break the frame around the photograph.

“Gah! No! Wait!! Here!! Take these too! Please don’t hurt him!” Andrew begged, moving and fumbling for another hidden compartment, this one in the floor beneath where he’d been sitting. He withdrew what looked like a small treasure chest, opening it up so Spike could see inside. All the jewels that Buffy had stolen glittered within, reds and greens and blues, blacks and sparkling white.

“That it, then?” Spike asked, reaching for the box.

Andrew nodded his head vehemently, “Yes! That’s all we have!! I swear! I … can I have him now? Pleeeease?” he stammered, eyes wide with fear and worry.

Spike studied him another few moments, concluding that the little git was telling the truth, and handed him the only slightly damaged framed photograph. Andrew clutched it to his breast and bent his head down, gently whispering assurances and endearments to the cherished Timothy.

“By the way, Timothy Dalton almost single-handedly destroyed the Bond franchise. Worst. Bond. Ever,” Spike informed him dryly.

Andrew gasped in horror, hugging the photo tighter and looking up, incredulous. “You don’t know anything! Philistine!”

Spike rolled his eyes again and stuffed the box of DVDs in the bag with the others he’d gathered up, then jumped down out of the van. “Got it,” he assured Buffy, holding up the booty – DVDs and gemstones.

Buffy nodded and let out a deep breath which she felt like she’d been holding for weeks now. Relief flooded over her and she let go of Jonathan, stepping around him to join Spike. “We need to burn those tapes … do they burn?” she asked, looking dubiously at all the plastic.

Spike shrugged. “Melts, I reckon.”

“Good ... good, melty sex tapes is of the good.”

Spike snorted a short laugh. “Can’t we just watch once, luv?” he asked, waggling his brows at her as they walked back toward his crypt. “Never seen how amazin’ I am on tape before.”

“You have a pretty high opinion of your skills,” Buffy countered with an eye roll.

“Based on how you react to my _skills_ , I’d reckon you have a pretty high opinion of ‘em too, luv,” Spike retorted, leveling his smoldering gaze in her direction.

Buffy punched him in the jaw hard enough to make him stagger, but not fall. “The answer is a big, fat ‘no’, there will be no watching, only melting.”

“Oh … I could melt ya, Slayer,” Spike teased in a low, sexy voice, catching his balance, but staying just out of punching range.

Buffy bit her bottom lip and her throat tightened. She needed to end this now. Now before something else happened, and she was also gonna have to figure out how to deal with Spike now that she knew he could kill again.

“I … ummm ... think just melting the tapes is … all the melting I want.”

Buffy stopped and grabbed his arm, pulling him around to face her. “I mean … ever. I can’t do this anymore, Spike. I’m sorry, but … I just … it’s over. Whatever we were, it’s over.”

Spike smirked. “You’ve said that before, Slayer, never stuck.”

“It’s sticky … this time,” she assured him. “Not, like, Post-it Note sticky … Superglue sticky.

“Thank you for … this,” she waved her hand at the bag, “I’ll come by later and get Warren and the jewels … turn him over to the police with the gems, but, us, you and me, it’s over … _William_. I’m sorry.”

Their eyes met in that moment, green on blue – sparkling like the emeralds and sapphires in the treasure chest – locked together, both intense pools of emotion. Spike’s chest tightened, his dead heart realizing the truth of her words unlike all the times she’d said them before.  She meant it this time. She bloody meant it.

Buffy blinked first, and looked away, clearing the emotion from her throat with a short cough.  She took the bag of tapes, floppy discs, and DVDs from his hand and turned, walking off into the night, leaving him alone. Again. Dazed and confused. Staring after her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand thanks to my wonderful beta, Paganbaby, who helped me so much with the scene between Spike and Andrew. I always have such a hard time getting Andrew's voice in my head, but I think it came out well with her help! She also created the amazing Banner for the chapter!! So awesome!! 
> 
> Thanks to you for reading! I hope you're enjoying it! You know my muse loves to hear from you, so drop him a note and say hi!
> 
> Lots more to come!


	4. Shoddy Workmanship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when Buffy's friends learn that Spike can get around the chip?

 

Buffy couldn’t remember feeling this light, this happy, since she’d been back, after being rudely yanked out of heaven, or even before she died, for that matter. She hummed a jaunty tune under her breath as she walked through the cemetery toward Spike’s crypt. The tapes, DVDs, and computer discs were not only melted, but crushed into teeny-tiny pieces and scattered in several dumpsters – she was taking no chances that someone could put Humpty Dumpty together again. She had double-checked Warren’s ‘lair’, aka: his mother’s basement, to make sure they’d gotten everything. As far as she could tell, they had. And, to top it off, she was confident that even the Sunnydale Police could solve the gem heists when she delivered Warren and the jewels to their doorstep.

And, she’d broken up with Spike.

Her happy tune ended abruptly, and her bouncing steps faltered. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Of course she was happy about that. It had to be done. That’s all there was to it. Happy. Happy as a ghost on Halloween. Happy as a witch with a new broom. Happy as a vamp in a blood bank. Happy as a Slayer in a stake factory. That was her. Happy, happy, happy.

Buffy rolled her eyes and picked up her pace. Once she retrieved Warren and the gems then she wouldn’t have to see Spike again. Ever. For some reason that thought, which in the past would’ve filled her with joy, seemed to fall flat now, leaving a little tinge of regret lingering somewhere deep inside. Of course, she promptly swept that feeling aside and ignored it, as she was very practiced at doing with such emotions.

As Buffy got near Spike’s crypt, all thoughts of her happiness vanished, replaced by confusion and concern when she heard angry, raised voices coming from the direction of the vampire’s humble abode. Even though she couldn’t make out the words, she recognized the voices at once: The Scoobies.

Buffy took off running the last few yards and crashed through the door in an explosion of dust and creaking hinges.

Everyone froze in that moment and she took in the scene:

Xander was standing in front of Spike, menacing him with a stake, ready to strike. Spike, who looked like he’d been beaten up, his eyes swollen nearly closed, was backed up against one wall.  Tara was pushing on Xander’s chest, trying to insert herself between the angry man and the helpless vampire. Dawn was pulling on Xander’s stake-free arm, trying to move him back, apparently to little effect.

On the other side of the crypt, Anya and Willow were bent over a semi-conscious, bloody and beaten, but demon-skin-less Warren, trying to assess his injuries and provide comfort.

In the next moment, everyone began speaking at once.

“Buffy!”

“Spike’s killing again!”

“Buffy! Stop him!”

“Warren’s hurt! We need a hospital!”

“This is the last straw!”

“I know Spike didn’t do it!”

Buffy held both of her hands up, palms facing the group, and yelled, “STOP!” at the top of her lungs, drowning out the cacophony of voices.

They all stopped. They stopped talking and stopped moving for an instant, which Buffy took advantage of.

She headed for Xander first, pushing him back several paces from Spike, then asked no one in particular, “What’s going on here? Why are you all here?”

Anya was the first one to recover. She stood up from kneeling near Warren and explained, “Well, Dawn came over for movie night with Spike. You know, the first Tuesday of every month? It started when you were gone, you know, when you were in heaven? Which we rudely dragged you out of. I think tonight was supposed to be a romcom – which I find odd, because I didn’t know vampires liked romcom – but I didn’t get a chance to ask which one yet.”

Buffy clenched her jaw in frustration. She’d completely forgotten about movie night, with everything going on, Spike probably had too.

“’When Harry Met Sally,’” Dawn interjected.

“Oh! I found that early example of the genre very entertaining! That scene in the deli when Meg Ryan performed a fake orgasm was extremely realistic…” Anya, continued.

“Anya! Focus!” Buffy interrupted.

“Oh! We’ll discuss it when Buffy’s done bossing everyone around,” Anya assured Dawn confidentially, before turning back to the Slayer. “Well, then Xander and I came by to just check on Dawn and walk her home – you know how Xander is about Spike! – at which time Xander discovered the human in the demon suit because he started moaning over here. Of course, that set off a series of expletives, exclamations, and a rather severe beating. The witches were passing by and heard the shouting, so they came to see what was going on. And, here we are! It would be a party, except the movie’s over and all the popcorn’s gone.”

“And not a bloody one of you knocked! Ill-bred clods, the lot of you!!” Spike interjected helpfully.

Dawn raised her hand timidly, just about shoulder height, and gave Spike a questioning look.

“’Cept the nibblet,” he amended. “She knocked.”

Buffy sighed, held up her hands again and turned to look directly at Tara. “Let’s skip the Miss Manners lesson and go right to the beating up Spike part. What happened?”

Before Tara could stammer out even the start of an explanation, Xander jumped in from behind Buffy, his righteous indignation restored. “Spike’s figured out a way to fool the chip!”

Buffy rolled her eyes and spun around to face her furious friend. Behind her, she could hear Tara and Dawn helping Spike to a chair.

“I know,” Buffy replied to Xander in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, folding her arms over her chest.

Xander didn’t seem to hear her. He gesticulated wildly with the stake, waving it between Spike and Warren.  “He dressed Warren in a dead demon skin!”

“I know.”

“He tortured him!”

“I know.”

“He could kill any of us at any time!”

“I know.”

“He’s … he’s _evil_!”

“I know.”

“He’s got all the stolen gems!”

“I know.”

“Look at Warren!” Xander insisted, her words still not registering with him as he moved toward the fallen villain.  “He’s beat to shit! He’s got a black eye, a broken nose, missing teeth!”

Buffy shrugged, moving over and peering down at the blackmailer. “Pretty sure I did that when I knocked him out.”

Xander’s face went through a myriad of emotions, from confusion to utter confusion, as he tried to process her words.

“What …? What do you mean, ‘I know’?”

“What part of ‘I know’ can’t you understand, Xan?” Buffy asked sarcastically as she planted her hands on her hips.

“I told you so,” Spike croaked indignantly from his chair. “Bloody git wouldn’t listen. Stake first, ask the Slayer later, that’s his bloody policy.”

Buffy sighed and opened the treasure chest that sat atop the tomb near Warren. She spread the gems out on top of it like a glittering table-runner ready for Christmas dinner. The group, including a bruised and battered Spike, assisted by Dawn and Tara, encircled the tomb to look.

“Warren’s been stealing jewels,” Buffy explained, thinking fast. “Spike and I found out and … I needed Warren to tell me where they were, but couldn’t get him to talk. Spike could and did.” She shrugged, as if it was an everyday occurrence.

“You …” Xander stared at her agape, unable to finish the thought.

“Shut your mouth, you’ll catch flies like that,” Buffy advised him with an innocent smile.

“How can you … defend him!? How can you condone this brutality?” Xander demanded, horrified.

“Actually, the torture was quite rudimentary and hastily done,” Anya contradicted her fiancé with a slight shrug. “On a ten-point scale of ‘brutal’, I’d give it a two and a half, maybe three. Certainly not up to William the Bloody’s previously exceptional standards,” she pointed out pragmatically.

At this, Spike scowled, his mouth set in a grim line. “Ta, ever so,” he grumbled to the ex-demon.

Anya, of course, didn’t notice, engrossed in her observations. “You do know how Spike got his name, don’t you? Railroad spikes. Back in France, or maybe it was Belgium, I heard of one banker who—"

“Oi! Enough o’ that, yeah?” Spike growled out through his swollen and bloodied lips, glaring daggers at her. He knew exactly the story she meant to tell, and that wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted Buffy hearing, let alone the bit.

Anya looked up at him then, surprised, but shrugged and desisted in her recollections. She looked back down at Warren, who remained dazed on the floor, and concentrated on cataloging his injuries, instead.

“As for this accused, but not convicted, jewel thief: a couple of extracted fingernails, some sharpened bamboo under the toenails, and a few miscellaneous bruises and abrasions. Nothing Spike did left any permanent damage, no dislocated joints, severed limbs, or brain damage. He didn’t even feed – no fang marks. Much more Hanoi Hilton than Spanish Inquisition,” Anya concluded with a judicious nod of her head.

In low whispers, both Dawn and Spike spoke almost with one voice, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.” They both looked at each other, small, knowing smiles curving their lips.

Buffy caught this covert exchange and a bloom of warmth spread up through her heart. Spike had promised to protect Dawn, and he had – but he’d done much more. He’d become Dawn’s friend, her big brother, her guardian angel, while Buffy was dead, and even afterwards. What Dawn had been through had not been easy, Buffy knew. Dawn was plagued with guilt and loneliness and desolation, and Spike had helped her cope with it all – in fact he was still helping her. Romcom movie nights were certainly proof of that. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to do any of it. He hadn’t had to help the Scoobies patrol, help keep Sunnydale safe in her absence, but he had. He could’ve left. He could’ve gone back to his evil ways, obviously he’d figured out how to fool the chip, but he hadn’t run off. He’d stayed. He’d made Buffy a promise and he’d kept it to the best of his abilities.

Buffy was pulled from her contemplation by a rough cough and throat-clearing from the floor on the other side of the sarcophagus. “That’s a lie,” Warren wheezed out through broken teeth. “She’s fucking Spi—”

Buffy, standing on the other side of the tomb, had just registered what Warren was about to reveal when the blackmailer’s words were cut off by a crunching sound as Spike’s fist connected with the fallen man’s jaw.

They both screamed in pain, Warren and Spike. Spike clutched his head as the chip fired and Warren reached for his jaw where the blow had landed, loosening a few more teeth. Spike dropped down to his knees, writhing in pain next to Warren as the vamp waited for the chip to stop shooting electrical barbs of fire into his brain.

“That’s it!” Xander exclaimed from his position next to Warren. “He needs to be staked! He’s a menace! And if you won’t do it, then I will!” he informed Buffy, stepping over Warren to get to Spike, raising the stake, preparing to strike.

“NO!” Buffy vaulted over the sarcophagus where the jewels were spread to block Xander’s way, but she couldn’t get there in time to completely stop him. Xander’s stake-hand came down hard, aiming right for Spike’s unbeating heart. Buffy kicked at Xander’s arm as she sailed over the tomb, sending the downward trajectory off-target, and Xander drove the stake into Spike’s shoulder instead.

Spike howled in renewed pain and clutched at his bleeding shoulder, scrabbling back away from the group to some relative safety a few feet away.

Buffy placed herself firmly between Xander and the fallen vamp. “I said, ‘no’! There will be no staking!”

“Have you lost your mind, Buffy?” Xander demanded, standing toe to toe with the Slayer, stake, dripping blood, clutched tightly in his right hand. “He’s a killer!”

“He’s NOT!” Buffy defended.

At Xander’s incredulous look, she wavered. “I mean … I know he _has_ killed…”

“Which makes him a KILLER!” Xander pointed out, logically.

“No, not in the present-tense, past-tense only! He’s changed!” Buffy argued.

“I think Warren would disagree with you on that, Buff,” Xander chided sarcastically. “Spike hasn’t changed, he’ll never change! The chip forced him to play nice, and now he’s figured out how to out-smart it!”

“That’s not … this isn’t what it looks like. None of this is what it looks like,” Buffy argued, flinging her arms out in frustration.

Tara and Dawn had gone behind Buffy to try and help Spike again, Willow was checking on Warren, while Anya was dreamily fondling the jewels with unrestrained avarice gleaming in her eyes, completely ignoring everything else.

Xander and Buffy, however, were oblivious to any of that. They were focused wholly on each other; one intent on protecting the vampire who had protected her town, her friends and family, the other intent on destruction.

“No? Well, it seems pretty clear to me, Buff,” Xander assured her coldly. He used the stake again to make his point, blood dripping, waving it between Warren and Spike. “These two were in cahoots together to steal gemstones. Spike obviously felt like he wasn’t getting his fair share in the deal and decided to torture Warren to have him give them up. Which, apparently, worked,” Xander concluded, pointing at the pile of sparkling stones.

Buffy shook her head and rolled her eyes, but before she could argue, Spike’s voice, with a decidedly posh and aristocratic accent, came from behind her, “I say! Well done, Miss Marple. What are you doing just standing here when there are more mysteries waiting to be solved? Pip, pip, cheerio and all that rot!”

Buffy whirled around and hissed out, “You’re not helping, Spike,” before turning back to address Xander. “That’s NOT what happened. I told you! Warren stole the gems and I needed Spike to help me find them—”

“Then why did Spike have them and not you?” Xander asked logically. “If Spike was helping YOU find them, then where were you?”

“I was … doing … something,” Buffy began lamely.

Xander raised his brows at her, waiting.

“Slayer … stuff,” she concluded, equally as lamely.

Xander’s brows didn’t go down.

“Buff, look, I know you’ve been through a lot,” Xander began condescendingly, and Buffy snorted loudly, folding her arms over her chest. Xander pursed his lips a moment, then continued, “I think maybe it’s affected your judgement. Spike is—”

“Spike is someone who helped protect this town when I was dead!” Buffy filled in helpfully. “He protected Dawn, he helped you all patrol!”

“Yeah, and a fine job he did! Did you see those demons tearing the town apart when you … when … just before …” Xander’s voice trailed off.

“You mean when YOU GUYS brought me back from _heaven_? Yeah, as a matter of fact I did!” Buffy assured Xander, her voice cold as ice. “And I noticed that Spike was the one trying to protect Dawn, not YOU.”

_‘And he protected me just now when he stopped Warren from spilling the beans, too, even though he knew the chip would fire,’_ Buffy added silently, chewing on her bottom lip. 

“Buffy, I’m just not buying it. None of this tracks!” Xander insisted, throwing his hands out in frustration. “Maybe when Warren wakes up I can get a straight story out of him, because you, my _FRIEND_ , are not giving it to me.

“And the only reason Spike has been undusty all this time is because of the chip. Well, he knows how to get around that now! Can’t you see the danger? You would’ve had no trouble dusting him _before_ , you can’t stand there and say you would!”

Buffy looked around, feeling trapped and helpless – again. She was getting really tired of this feeling. She couldn’t get Warren out of here and leave Spike alone with Xander – Spike would be dust before the crypt door closed behind her. And she couldn’t take Spike away somewhere and leave Warren here with Xander and her friends either! It was clear he was ready to tell anyone who would listen what she had been doing behind closed doors … or, well … actually, just about anywhere, doors notwithstanding. They might not believe him, that was one consideration. He didn’t have any proof, after all. She’d destroyed it all, but … what if they did?

“It’s alright, Slayer,” Spike groaned from behind her, stumbling to his feet, clutching a towel to his shoulder to staunch the bleeding. “No need t’ protect me … I’m a big boy, I can take it. It’s like the git says … Warren and me … thick as thieves, we were. Tried to screw me over. Bad idea, yeah? Woulda gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids.

Spike waited a beat. “What, not even a chuckle?” he asked incredulously when no one laughed at his hilarious joke. “Scoobies? Meddling kids? Get it? Funny, that was.”

“It wasn’t that funny,” Buffy assured him, turning around to face him. “You don’t have to…”

“Pffft!” Spike interrupted her with a shrug. “I’ll just be on my way. I hear Rio’s nice this time o’ year.”

“What?” Dawn exclaimed. “You can’t leave! Spike! Please!”

Spike turned to the girl who he’d come to consider a little sis, if not a daughter, and gave her a small smile. “Time fer me to move on, little bit. You got your big sis back, you’ll be fine, luv.”

“Spike! Please…” Dawn cried, tears welling up and spilling from her eyes as she flung herself at him.

Spike caught her one-armed with a muffled ‘whoof’ of pain, and hugged her against himself tightly, dropping a gentle kiss atop her head. “You’ll be alright,” he assured her, or maybe he was assuring himself, before pressing her away and into Tara’s arms.

Spike began to wobble and stumble toward the crypt door and Buffy felt her stomach lurch in a most peculiar way, like someone was turning somersaults and cartwheels in her guts.

“Best get that one to the coppers, luv,” he whispered as he passed Buffy, nodding toward Warren, “’fore he wakes up and starts yammering again.”

“But … Spike … you didn’t do anything wrong,” Buffy argued.

Spike nodded but kept walking. “Story of my life, pet.”

Spike turned a cold gaze on Xander as he passed, challenging the boy to try and stop him. 

Xander looked from Buffy to Spike and back again. “You’re just gonna let him GO!?” he asked furiously. “How can you just let him go, Buff?! You know what he’s capable of!”

Buffy looked from Spike to Xander, then to Warren, who was beginning to come around again, and then back at Spike. The vamp kept walking toward the door, his steps becoming stronger as he went, his strength returning in slow measures.

Buffy’s head was spinning, Xander’s words roiling and colliding within, bouncing around in her skull like rubber bullets. 

_You’re just gonna let him GO!?_

_You know what he’s capable of!_

_How can you just let him go, Buff?!_

She DID know what he was capable of. She heard Dawn’s anguished sobs behind her and everything that Spike had done for her flooded through Buffy’s mind. Taking on Glory. Not revealing Dawn’s identity to the Bitch-God, even when he’d been tortured to within an inch of his life. Fighting at Buffy’s side to save Dawn, to save the world. Taking care of Dawn, and her friends, too.

And then Buffy’s mind shifted, and she realized it wasn’t just Dawn that he’d cared for, that he’d helped, that he’d been there for. It was her. He’d been there in the dark with her. He’d understood like no one else could. He’d never turned his back on her, even now, when she’d turned her back on him, he was trying to protect her.

He was the only one who could know what it felt like to be … dead. And then to be … not dead.

_‘He knew.’_

The thought hit her like an ocean wave, washing over her and making her take a staggering step back to keep from falling. HE KNEW. HE FUCKING KNEW!

“Spike! Stop! Wait!” Buffy called out, pushing past Xander toward the retreating vampire.

Spike halted but didn’t turn back. “I’m not worth it, luv, let me go,” he advised when she reached him, his voice low and husky, full of repressed emotion.

Buffy grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face her, their eyes locking as if drawn by magic.

“I’m not ready for you to not be here,” she pleaded in a whisper only he could hear.

Spike tilted his head, his eyes already narrow slits behind the mask of bruising, studying her. “What does that mean?”

“I … just … I …” Buffy stammered, not sure what it meant, it was just what she felt.

“Got yer mates, yeah? Don’t need a creature of the night sullying your good name, then, do ya?” he challenged, trying to sound angry but Buffy could hear the hurt behind the bravado.

“They don’t understand,” she admitted, shifting her gaze back over the waiting group before looking back at Spike.

“You know,” she whispered in a voice so low enough that even Spike had a hard time hearing her. “You died … you were in heaven before you … came back. You _know_ ,” Buffy insisted, not as a question but a statement of fact.

Spike’s gaze dropped down to the grimy floor of the crypt, breaking the connection between them. He tried to shake his head ‘no’, to dissuade her, but couldn’t get the message from his brain to his muscles. He felt like a bug skewered by a pin: caught, trapped, unable to move.

It was all the answer Buffy needed. He _did_ know.

“You know,” she repeated firmly.

“Was easier for me, yeah?” he finally admitted, still not looking at her. “Easier t’ be evil, let the darkness take ya. Easier to forget the light and move on that way.”

Spike looked up then, his intense blue eyes meeting hers.  “Don’t know how ya do it, Buffy. Never known anyone stronger than you, luv, no one who tries harder or cares more, but still don’t know how you do it. How you … live in the light after ... that.”

Tears flowed down Buffy’s cheeks, but she wasn’t even aware of them. She just stared at Spike in astonishment. He _did_ know.  He knew how hard it was for her to just live, he knew her struggle, her pain. He knew how harsh the world felt, how much she just wanted to lash out at everything and everyone. He knew the darkness that ate at her every minute of every day; he’d been living it for decades. He knew. He was someone who could actually understand everything she was feeling, everything she was fighting. No one else could possibly understand like he could.

“You,” she said, finally. “You’ve given me the strength to live in the light.”

Spike’s head tilted in question, his cerulean eyes awash in confusion.

Buffy nodded slowly, her eyes locked on his. “You.”

“Buffy! What the hell are you doing!? Are you gonna stake him or what?!” Xander demanded, losing patience and stepping up near the pair.

The spell had been broken between them, but Buffy could still feel it, feel the soul-deep connection. _Spike knew._

The Slayer swiped the sleeve of her shirt across her face, sniffing away her tears, and took a deep breath, turning to face Xander. A thousand arguments about what she should do dashed through her mind in the space of a few moments. No matter how they began, they all came back to the realization that Spike had helped her when none of them could, and she was not ready to let him go. Now that she finally understood the connection, she wasn’t going to let him walk out that door and possibly lose it forever. Her friends would just have to deal. They’d certainly dealt with worse.

“I choose door number two: ‘Or what,’” Buffy finally replied confidently.

She turned back to Spike and touched a gentle kiss against his swollen and bloodied lips.  Spike pulled back, momentarily stunned, but then, within the space of a heartbeat, he reached for her. The vampire pulled her body against his, his lips crashing against hers in desperate need of that connection, all pain forgotten. 

Gasps and curses and even a couple of cheers went up from the gathered Scoobies, with an, “Oh, fuck,” moaned out from the dazed Warren. But neither Buffy nor Spike paid any attention, lost in the sense of each other, the joy of a connection so deep to be unfathomable to anyone else.

When the kiss broke, Buffy leaned her forehead against Spike’s, a smile curving her luscious lips. “I guess my Superglue dried out while I was gone.”

Spike chuckled. “Thank God for shoddy workmanship.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, now, happily ever after? Uhhhh ... well, knowing Spike and Buffy, probably not.
> 
> Will Spike open up more to Buffy about what he remembers about his time before his resurrection or will he shut down? What about Buffy? Will she finally really talk to someone about what she experienced?
> 
> We'll find out soon!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear from you, I hope you are enjoying the story. Your reviews are dark chocolate for my muse!
> 
> Thanks so much also to PaganBaby for betaing this story for me and for all her encouragement and support.


	5. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Buffy have an actual conversation and dig up pieces of Spike's history that he's worked hard to bury.
> 
> Note: Some quotes directly from ‘Touched’ Written by: Rebecca Kirshner

 

Buffy handed Spike a tumbler of whiskey, which he accepted gratefully, swirling the aromatic liquid around in the glass and just savoring the fragrance of it for the moment. 

Spike sat on the edge of his bed in his cozy nest below the crypt, clad just in jeans, his pale torso glowing in the candlelight, a stark contrast to the dark, rich colors of this cavern he’d made his home. He was freshly-showered, and mostly-recovered, but there were bruises still marring his face, mostly around the eyes and mouth, and the stake wound still looked red and angry on his shoulder, but was no longer bleeding.

Buffy could see quite a few more bruises and abrasions on his torso; Xander must’ve kicked the vamp when he had been down. Buffy’s lips drew into a hard line at the thought. Xander had no trouble meting out punishment to anyone or anything he judged to be ‘evil’, especially if said ‘evil’ couldn’t fight back. But, Buffy had learned the hard way that things just aren’t that black and white.

The Scoobies had eventually disbursed some time earlier, though some more willingly than others. Xander, of course, needed a bit more persuasion, but, with the help of the other Scoobies, had finally desisted and gone home.  Buffy had helped Spike down the ladder and settled him comfortably in his bedroom before she delivered Warren, and the jewels, to the police station’s doorstep. As a precaution while she was gone, she’d shoved a marble statue over the trap door that lead down to the lower level, effectively locking Spike in and Xander out. It was much too heavy for Xander to move, and she doubted Spike would have the energy to even try. She felt it was a prudent action to take, just in case her friend got a wild hair up his ass to come back and finish what he’d started with Spike.

She’d left Warren with a stern warning to take his punishment with regards to the thefts and keep his trap zipped about her involvement. Based on how pale and shaken he became at the mention of Spike’s name in that brief exchange, she felt fairly sure he would do as he was told. If he didn’t … well, she’d burn that bridge when she came to it.

Now though, she didn’t want to think about Scoobies or jewels or blackmail or demons, she just wanted to talk to someone who knew. She’d felt so alone, so isolated, these past weeks, she longed for a connection, a life raft that she could cling to in these turbulent seas she was trying to navigate. And she’d finally found it, in the guise of a vampire, in Spike.

She thought it quite ironic, but that was pretty much status-quo for her life. She was irony-girl, and it wasn’t Alanis Morissette irony, either. It was one of her strongest super-powers … along with temporary death and power-shopping.

“Tell me,” she asked quietly, still standing in front of him, watching him swirl the whiskey around in the glass.

Spike didn’t pretend to not know what she meant. He studied the glass of whiskey, but didn’t drink, instead rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, closing his eyes, and sighing.

Buffy sat down on the bed next to him and waited, not touching, but near enough that they both knew the other was there without looking.  After a while, Buffy thought maybe he wasn’t going to answer her, she fidgeted nervously with the end of a thread that had come loose from the quilt beneath them, wrapping it around her finger, then unwrapping, over and over until it left a mark in her skin, waiting. When Spike did finally break the silence, it startled her, making her yank her hand away, breaking the thin thread.

“Before …” he began, waving a hand to encompass everything, shrugging. “Before Dru, I was … well … I wasn’t quite as depraved as I might’ve led you to believe. A bit of a poofter, t’ be honest, an academic, a poet, a romantic,” he admitted before downing the whiskey in one long gulp.

“So, you haven’t always been a bad-boy, huh?” Buffy asked with a small smile, taking the empty glass from him and moving to the dresser to refill it.

Spike snorted softly. “If ya tell a soul, I’ll bloody kill ya, Slayer.”

Buffy’s smile widened, and she lifted three fingers in a pledge, “Slayer’s honor,” she promised. “What happens in the crypt, stays in the crypt.”

Spike took the second glass of whiskey from her and rolled it back and forth between his hands, gazing down into the amber liquid, but seeing something far away.

“Wasn’t entirely a choir-boy, had my moments of … well, just say, had reason to believe it _wasn’t_ heaven I was in,” Spike revealed solemnly, remembering, still gazing down into the whiskey glass.

“Told m’self it was just hallucinations from Dru’s bite or from her blood, yeah? She’s bloody mad, ya know? Could’a passed it on t’ me. Didn’t feel like hallucinations, but that was easier. If I let myself think Dru had killed me, and I actually got into heaven by some mistake or miracle, only t’ be pulled back here…?” Spike shook his head, growing silent again.

“You would’ve killed her,” Buffy offered gently, reaching a hand out to touch his arm.

“I would’ve _tried_ ,” he corrected. “Probably why vamps get stronger the older they get, otherwise their gets would bloody stake them. But yer too weak and ravenous just then, and ya know it’s wrong, what you’re doing, but you can’t stop – least, that’s how it was fer me. Wild with hunger, you are. And the more ya feed the hunger, the further you fall into the darkness, and the less you remember the light.”

“But you remember … don’t you?” Buffy prompted gently.

Spike looked up finally and met Buffy’s eyes across the short distance between them. “I remember,” he admitted, his voice hoarse, his throat tight, then his eyes dropped, unable to hold her gaze another moment.

He felt like he was baring his soul with the admission, laying himself open for her to pick and prod at, completely defenseless and exposed.   He wanted desperately to stop talking about this, to back away, to go back to solid footing with the Slayer, but it was too late.  There was only one way out of this, and that was through. Through the emotions, through the memories, through the pain.

“I remember,” he continued softly. “It was warm. There was a soft light, but it wasn’t really a light that you could see, more like you could feel it. Like golden, late-summer sunshine, only coming from inside.”

Buffy nodded as he spoke, her eyes staring blindly, focused somewhere in the middle distance, but seeing something far, far away.

“And there was love – that’s all I can think t’ call it,” Spike continued, speaking softly. “Never felt anything like it before or since.” He wanted to say that what he felt for her was the closest he’d ever come, but bit that comment back. He knew she didn’t want to hear that, she’d surely run away again if he voiced it now. He didn’t want to chance that.

“I could feel my mom,” Buffy interjected. “I don’t know how I knew it was her, but … that’s what it felt like. Wrapped in unconditional love.”

Spike nodded slowly, reaching over and taking one of Buffy’s hands in his and squeezing tightly.

“Was like your whole soul floated in a soft, warm aurora of sparkling love, enveloped in euphoric colors that don’t even exist in this world,” Spike added.

Buffy smiled sadly, nodding, tears welling up in her eyes, and turned to look at him. “That’s very poetic,” she teased gently.

Spike’s eyes met hers cautiously, afraid of seeing mockery there. “Can’t bloody take it if ya laugh at me, Slayer.”

Buffy shook her head slowly. “I’m not laughing. It was perfect,” she assured him. “It’s so hard to explain, but … yeah, that’s close. As close as I’ve ever gotten.”

Spike nodded, and looked away, relief washing over him. She hadn’t reached in and yanked his heart out and stomped on it … and she could’ve so easily. “I’ve had a hundred years t’ think on it,” he pointed out.

“But then you’re snatched out,” he continued. “Feels like you’re being sucked under, drowned, spun around in a whirlpool, yeah? And the love and light is up above you, but you can’t reach it no matter how hard you try, you’re being pulled further and further away. Deeper into darkness, into cold and oblivion. Was it like that for you?” he asked.

Buffy nodded slowly. “Exactly like that…”

“And suddenly you’re in this grave, dirt fillin’ your nostrils, your eyes, your mouth, and all you can think is to get out, to find your way back to the light.”

“I was in a coffin,” Buffy interjected. “But, yeah. I just wanted to go back – back to the light.”

“But ya can’t,” Spike concluded quietly.

“But you can’t,” Buffy agreed, solemnly, sighing and leaning over sideways until her head rested on his shoulder.

Spike released her hand that he’d been holding, and wrapped an arm around her, holding her against him gently. The glass of whiskey was still in his other hand and he lifted it up, offering it to her.

Buffy took it from him and took a sip, scrunching up her face and shaking her head in revulsion as it burned its way down her gullet.

“Good stuff, eh?” Spike asked as he took the glass back from her and downed the rest in one large swallow.

“Very smooth,” Buffy wheezed out with a slight cough.

* * *

 

They sat in silence for a bit, each lost in their own memories and thoughts. Unlike most silences she found herself in lately, this one wasn’t uncomfortable, in fact, it was just the opposite. She felt no need to assure or posture or pretend, she could just sit here and be this Buffy. Back-from-the-dead-Buffy. She didn’t have to be the other Buffy that everyone wanted her to be.

Finally, Spike broke the silence, continuing his description of his own resurrection. “When the world stopped spinning, everything was dark. Not dark like someone forgot t’ pay the electric bill, but like the dark was planted inside ya, a seed growing. Felt like an emptiness taking over, it did.  An evil that spreads out like jagged furrows o’ black lava from yer soul. Eats away at ya, it does, consumes every glimmer of light inside.

“Figured it was the demon, just takin’ over, driving my soul out, but … you feel it too, dontcha?”

Buffy nodded against his shoulder, but didn’t speak.

“How do ya fight it, Buffy? I … couldn’t.”

Buffy sighed. “Well, in my favor, I don’t have to drink blood to live; I don’t have that bloodlust from the demon. It’s just a darkness trying to … take over, I guess.”

“I tried, Buffy … I bloody tried,” Spike admitted, his voice thick with emotion.

Buffy sat back up straight, pulling out of his embrace and chewing her bottom lip as tears stung her eyes. She shook her head slowly, lifting her eyes to meet his bewildered gaze. “And you _have_ fought it, Spike – I see that now – and … you’ve shown me how to, too.”

Spike snorted and looked up at the ceiling. “Reckon there’s a lot o’ people that would disagree with you on that, pet, including that geek up there,” he countered, tilting his head toward the trap door and all that happened above in the last few hours.

“You … I shouldn’t have asked you to do that,” Buffy admitted, ashamed. “I’m sorry … I was … afraid … desperate. It wasn’t fair to you, I see that now. I was trying to hold on to the … the … façade of sparkling Slayer goodness … or at least only slightly tarnished Slayer. I never realized that you were trying to hold onto something, too.”

Spike opened his mouth to protest, but Buffy held her hand up. “You didn’t bite him – you didn’t feed. Spike, don’t you see? You are holding on, you _are_ fighting it.”

“Wasn’t hungry,” Spike answered, sniffing dismissively as he got up to refill the whiskey glass again.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “That’s like saying if someone handed me a chocolate bar full of tasty goodness, I wouldn’t eat it because I wasn’t hungry.”

At the mention of chocolate, Buffy’s stomach growled loudly, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since … sometime this morning, or was that yesterday?

Spike turned, cocking a brow at her, then set his empty glass down and opened one of the dresser drawers below his bar. To Buffy’s delight he pulled out a Baby Ruth, holding it up for her to see.

“Oh, my God, you’re an angel!” she exclaimed, jumping up and grabbing the chocolate from his hand.

“Don’ be rude, now, Slayer, no name calling!” Spike teased, watching her rip the wrapper off the Baby Ruth and begin to devour it. “Right sure Angel never kept candy bars fer ya in his lair.”

Buffy laughed through the moans of utter chocolate-covered ecstasy. “You’re my hero,” she amended, mumbling around the sticky caramel that clung to her teeth.

Buffy swallowed the bite in her mouth and turned serious again, standing facing him. “I mean it, Spike. You saved my life … or at least … my soul.” More irony. A soulless vampire saving her soul?

Buffy walked back over to the bed and plopped back down, bouncing slightly on the springy mattress. She began taking smaller, more contemplative bites of the candy as Spike watched, waiting for some explanation.

When she’d nearly finished the candy bar, she looked up at him and did explain, “You know those … ‘ _jagged furrows of black lava’”,_ she quoted, using his description of it, which was as good as any she could come up with. “I have them too. I can feel them inside me, radiating out like … like when a rock breaks your windshield, ya know? Like in a spider-web of …” Buffy hesitated, waving one hand feebly and shrugging.

“Torment, anguish, rage, despair, grief, anger?” Spike offered helpfully.

“Is there a word for all that, rolled up into one happy ball?” Buffy wondered, furrowing her brow in thought. “Tor-ra-ang-gri-pair?”

Spike snorted and nodded. Good enough.

“But, when I’m with you, when we’re … _you know_ …” Buffy continued, once again waving a hand vaguely, this time toward the bed.

Spike raised both brows now. “If you can do it, then ya should be able to say it, Slayer.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “I-I’m not even sure what it is, Spike. It’s not ‘making love’. Fighting? Fornicating? Screwing?”

“Fucking,” Spike offered helpfully, moving back to sit back down on the bed next to her.

Buffy rolled her eyes again, but conceded, a bright pink blush rising to her cheeks, “Fucking…

“But, in those moments,” she continued. “When … _you know_ …”

“When you cum under me like a bloody tornado, screaming and clawing and nearly tearing me apart, burning me to embers, begging me to never stop?” Spike filled in, running his tongue along his upper teeth in a salacious grin.

Buffy cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Errr … ummm, yeah, _then_ , and … and before that too, and a little after – but those gashes inside me, they…” Buffy shook her head, staring out into nothing, looking for words.

Unfortunately, Spike didn’t fill any in for her this time, he just waited, watching her with a furrowed brow, the last bite of candy bar forgotten in her hand.

Finally, she blinked and looked back at him, her eyes meeting his. “The darkness, tor-ra-ang-gri-pair, is gone … at least temporarily. There’s light, there’s happiness, more than that, there’s _hope_.”

“Called ‘endorphins’, luv, dopamine and the like,” Spike offered. “The body’s own illicit drug lab.”

Buffy shook her head with certainty. “No … no, it’s not that. Well, it is partly, but that’s not all.

“Spike, I don’t know what it is exactly, but there’s something helping me fight it. Something from you ... and I need it. I need you.”

Spike swallowed hard and nodded, dropping his gaze to the floor. He wished he’d poured himself another glass of whiskey, he needed it now. He stood up abruptly and strode purposely back over to the bar, pouring himself a double … make that a triple. He downed it all in one long swallow and poured more.

“Spike, I know that’s not exactly what you want to hear,” Buffy offered sympathetically from behind him. “But, it’s all I have to give right now. Can it be enough?”

Spike hated himself, but knew that he would take any crumb she offered him. ‘Need’ wasn’t ‘love’, but it was something. It was also something that almost certainly would go away in time. But it was here now, and it was more emotion than she’d ever honestly offered him before, well, not counting hate, revulsion, and loathing.

Still, he had to ask, “Is there any chance of you having more t’ give later, Buffy?”

Spike stood motionless, facing away from her, unable to even look at her. He was so still he might’ve been part of the wall as he waited, fearing the answer. He heard her take in a deep breath and let it out slowly before answering, and he braced himself for the truth he knew he would hear: No. She had nothing more for an evil creature like him. She would use him as long as she needed him, but then he would be discarded, as he always had been before – as she’d just done earlier that night, in fact.

Buffy’s voice was soft and uncertain when the answer came, “I honestly don’t know. Can someone with a broken soul love?”

Spike turned around and met her eyes. The green depths were swirling, searching his for an answer, at the same time afraid of what it might be.

“Yes,” he replied quietly, but with complete conviction. “Deeply.”

* * *

 

Buffy smiled shyly and nodded. “Well, deeply is of the good,” she acknowledged, but then bit her lip, hesitant, dropping her eyes away from Spike’s penetrating gaze. “Angel couldn’t … not without his soul.”

“I’m not bloody Angel … and neither are you,” Spike assured her vehemently, bringing his glass of whiskey with him as he joined her sitting on the edge of his bed again.

“Hey, look at me, Buffy,” he requested softly, touching one finger to her chin to lift her eyes back to his. “I was alive a bit longer than you, and dead a lot longer than that. I've seen things you couldn't imagine, and done things I'd prefer you didn't … some of them just tonight. I don't exactly have a reputation for being a thinker; I follow my blood, which doesn't exactly rush in the direction of my brain. So I make a lot of mistakes. A lot of wrong bloody calls. A hundred plus years, and there's only one thing I've ever been sure of: you. You’re a hell of a woman, Buffy. The darkness won’t take you … you are not Angel.”

Buffy nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks. “And neither are you,” she whispered, barely loud enough for even Spike to hear, barely louder than a thought.

Spike pursed his lips and nodded. He didn’t think he could hate Angel more, but right now his loathing for his grandsire quadrupled. How horribly the wanker must’ve hurt her for her to still feel the sting of it all these years later. Spike could almost feel his own heart breaking at the thought of her anguish.

“I’d never hurt you, Buffy. I swear it,” Spike pledged, reaching up to gently brush away her tears. “I’d give my life a thousand times to keep you from pain.”

Buffy swallowed hard and sniffed back her emotions, then nodded. “I-I believe you … William. I’m sorry that I hurt you; it wasn’t fair.”

Spike smiled sadly at that and set his still-full glass on the night stand next to the bed. Spike slid back onto the bed and propped himself up against the pillows at the headboard, opening his arms to her in silent invitation to join him.

Buffy did. They curled together without words, Buffy’s damp, heated cheeks pressed against Spike’s cool chest, his arms wrapped around her as if to protect her from her demons, from the darkness within, gently stroking her back through her soft sweater.

Buffy felt a weight lift off her, as if every cell of her body was suddenly freed of a tremendous burden. Her whole body suddenly felt like jelly, as if the lifting of her burden, the sharing of her secret with someone who truly understood, finally allowed her to relax. She didn’t have to be Sparkly, Happy Slayer here with him, she could be what she was, and it was an immense relief to drop the pretense.  She let her eyes fall closed in the arms of her mortal enemy, never before feeling safer than she did in this moment.

Spike touched a gentle kiss atop her head and whispered, “I’ll always be your hero,” into her soft, blonde locks before exhaustion overtook him. His eyes fell closed as he held the Slayer close, and he let himself be drawn down into the arms of Morpheus with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Some quotes directly from ‘Touched’ Written by: Rebecca Kirshner
> 
> All the thanks to the wonderful Paganbaby both for betaing this story AND providing the wonderful banners! They so rock! 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Lots more to come! I hope you'll stop by and let me know your thoughts. I love hearing from you!


	6. The Way to a Slayer’s Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy reveals one of the Sacred Slayer Rules of Life and Death to Spike as she tries to pry more of his story out of him and figure out just what makes him 'not Angel'.

 

Buffy woke with a languorous stretch and a wide yawn. For once she knew exactly where she was when she woke, something that had been a struggle since her resurrection.  She blinked her eyes to focus them in the dim light and reached out across the bed, only to find it empty. She frowned and sat up, looking around Spike’s bedroom cavern, but didn’t see Spike. Her frown deepened as she tossed off the covers, which she was sure she’d been on top of when she fell asleep in Spike’s arms, and got out of bed.

“Spike?” she called hesitantly, walking over to the one candle that still burned atop the bar/dresser. She reached for it, intending to use it to light her way around the cavern to find Spike. But, before her hand reached it, she saw a note on the bar next to it written in a flowing, old-fashioned hand:

_Buffy,_

_Didn’t want to leave you, but I’ve heard tell that sweets aren’t a proper breakfast. Despite Dawn’s opinions on the matter, I thought you’d rather have something a bit more food-like._

_Back soon._

_-Spike_

Buffy smiled and her stomach grumbled its agreement with Spike’s conclusion, however, it felt that a first breakfast of a candy bar would be perfectly proper. Spike’s more food-like contribution, whatever it was, would make a good second breakfast. 

She dug in the dresser drawer and found not only Baby Ruths in there, but several other kinds of candy and even a couple of bottles of water.  She had just decided on a Snickers bar for first breakfast when the trap door above her opened and her senses were flooded with the aroma of bacon and eggs and … waffles? Or was it pancakes? And, that nectar of the gods: coffee.

“Oh my God, Spike! I could marry you!” Buffy exclaimed, planting a celebratory kiss on his cheek as he reached the bottom of the ladder. She took the Styrofoam boxes, from which all those amazing aromas were emanating, out of his hands and practically skipped over to a small, square dining table in one corner.

Spike laid a hand over his cheek where her warmth still lingered and smiled, his heart jumping slightly at her words, which she’d flung out so casually. He drew a deep breath, reminding himself that they were just words, she didn’t mean it, and made himself reply just as flippantly.

“If I’d known pancakes and coffee were the way to yer heart, Slayer, I’da been drowning you in ‘em long ago.”

Buffy laughed through a mouthful of maple syrup drenched pancakes and pointed her plastic fork at him. “A hundred years and you never learned that a way to a Slayer’s heart is through her stomach?” she ‘tsked’ her tongue at him, shaking her head ruefully, before devouring a strip of bacon.

Spike laughed, lighting a couple more candles, and sat down in the chair to her right, picking up a sausage link and dunking it into some of her maple syrup before taking a bite of it.

Buffy watched him with interest. “Why do you do that?”

“Sweet an’ savory … one of my favorites,” he explained, double-dipping the rest of the sausage link in her syrup before eating it.

“No, I mean eat people-food … instead of just, eating … people?” she elaborated, barely stopping herself from saying that Angel never ate food.

Spike shrugged. “Tastes good, yeah? One of life’s many pleasures.”

“But … you aren’t alive.” The words were out of Buffy’s mouth before she could stop them.  She wanted to put them back in, but, as usual, her ability to un-say something remained on the fritz.

Spike’s brows rose up. “Aren’t I, then?” he questioned cordially, not seeming to take offense. “Back from the dead, yeah? Like you. Soul a bit dicey. Like you. Sitting in a crypt eatin’ breakfast. Like you.”

Buffy took a sip of coffee to keep herself from saying anything else rude to the man who had just brought her a four-course breakfast.

She would’ve most certainly argued that point with him before, but was he right? What made someone alive versus … not alive?

Buffy eyed Spike over the rim of the paper cup, contemplating. He wasn’t looking at her, but seemed overly engrossed in opening the other Styrofoam container of food that Buffy hadn’t gotten to yet.  It smelled like huevos rancheros … _Mmmm_ , she could go for some of that!

Buffy shook her head a bit, refocusing.

What made someone ‘alive’? Maybe you needed a beating heart? But did that really matter so much? Weren’t there other things that mattered more? Like giving comfort to another being, as Spike had done last night? Like passion and pain? Spike was well acquainted with both. Like laughter and tears? She’d seen Spike at the highest of highs and lowest of lows. Like love? Spike had assured her that he could love, and so could she.  Like… enjoying sausage dipped in syrup?

Did you need to have a soul to be ‘alive’? She’d seen humans do some unspeakably horrible things to other humans. Did they have souls? She had her doubts, but was pretty sure everyone would agree they were alive, nonetheless.

Well, if her soul had come back with her, it was badly damaged, of that she had no doubt. She was pretty sure that was why the chip didn’t fire anymore when she fought Spike, no matter what Tara had said about it. Tara couldn’t feel what Buffy felt inside. And, she had to wonder what would have happened to her if not for her friends and Spike. What if she’d come back and been alone, or worse, with that nuttier-than-a-fruitcake vamp-bitch, Dru?

The description of his journey from death and back to life described her own so well that it was scary. Did Spike actually come back soulless, or had it been damaged like hers, and, over time, been engulfed in the darkness, covered up, repressed, beaten into submission by the demon? Was it there, but, like he said, a ‘bit dicey’?  Her only baseline for a souled vs. un-souled vampire had been Angel/Angelus, and, as Spike pointed out last night, he was no Angel … and he certainly wasn’t an Angelus.

After a few moments of contemplation, she asked, “Are all vampires the same? I mean … like you? Do they all,” Buffy waved a hand vaguely before continuing, “remember heaven and the whole aurora thing? Do vampires that were bad people come back from hell instead of heaven?”

Spike shook his head. “Dunno. Vamps typically don’t sit ‘round the campfire sharing their feelin’s, luv. No twelve-step meetings or therapy groups to explore our tragic pasts.”

Buffy rolled her eyes, but persisted. “You spent all those years with Dru and she never mentioned it?”

Spike huffed a laugh. “Dru saw the stars … named them all,” he began.

Buffy’s brows drew together, not sure what that had to do with anything, and she offered a hesitant, “Okaaay…”

“She saw the stars indoors,” Spike continued flatly, waving a hand at the ceiling of the cavern. “During the daytime. And she gave ‘em all the same name.” Spike paused and let that sink in a moment before continuing, “Let’s face it, Dru was a few bubbles off plumb. Couldn’t tell what she was talkin’ about half the bloody time.”

“Oh,” Buffy replied shortly.  “Well, did you ever make any … baby vampires?”

Spike blanched at that, turning even paler than normal, if that was possible, a vision of his mother washing through his mind unbidden. He’d tried fiercely to bury that memory over the years, and had mostly succeeded. Buffy had brought it crashing back in an instant. Most vampires killed their families, but not him. He wanted to save his mother, to restore her to strength and health. And, well, he had, hadn’t he? And she’d turned on him, callously and cruelly. 

“I mean, other than my so-called friend, Ford, who got very dusty, very quickly.”

Buffy could read his expression; he had been too surprised to mask it. “You did make some,” she asserted, eyeing him closely.

“One,” Spike admitted grudgingly. “And, for the record, I didn’t turn your little sickly friend, Ford, was it? Couldn’t stand the bloke. Bloody turncoat, he was. No honor. No loyalty.”

Buffy nodded solemnly. She was surprised to feel some relief roll over her with that revelation about her former friend and that it hadn’t been Spike who had turned him. Oddly, she completely understood the concept of honor among thieves, or demons, as it were, and she had to admit that Ford had not been the least bit honorable in the end.

“But apparently someone met your high moral standards. Did they say anything about…”

“NO! They didn’t say a bloody thing! Now, drop it, Slayer,” Spike growled, curling his hands into fists and meeting her eyes with a steely gaze that brooked no argument.

“O-ookay… sorry,” Buffy backed off cautiously. “Spike, you know, you can talk to me,” she offered kindly, reaching a hand out to touch his arm.

Spike closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to calm down, trying to get the memories and visions of his mother out of his head. It didn’t really work.

“I-I don’ think she …” Spike shook his head, his eyes still closed. “She wasn’t the same … after.” It was all he was willing to say on the subject.

“But you were?” Buffy wondered, watching him carefully. “After Dru, I mean? You were the same … you were still William?”

Spike shook his head, forcibly unclenching his fists, and finally opened his eyes and looked at her. “I _wasn’t_ the same, the demon was inside, part o’ me, yeah? But …” he hesitated again, looking deeply into her green eyes, searching for any sign of scorn or ridicule.

He didn’t see anything but compassion, so he took another breath and continued, “I was still William, I _am_ still William, far as that goes,” he admitted a bit grudgingly. “But the demon is there inside me too, always tryin’ to take over, and mostly succeeding. It’s bloody strong, Buffy. I didn’t fight it for a long time, gave in t’ the darkness, let it run the show – it was just easier that way. It’s part of me, Buffy, but it’s not _all_ of me. I don’t know how to explain it … it’s bloody complicated.”

Buffy nodded thoughtfully. She actually thought that description sounded a little like her when she was first Called. She was still ‘Buffy’, but the Slayer was inside her. She’d even tried to fight it for a while, but eventually had to accept it, to learn to live with it inside her, to coexist. The part of her that was the Slayer could be ruthless and primal – a dark huntress; it took constant vigilance to keep it from taking over. And, since she came back, it seemed stronger somehow, or darker or … or maybe her soul just wasn’t as strong as it had been before – she’d come back wrong.

“So, you can fight it,” Buffy observed. “But most vamps can’t … or won’t. Maybe they aren’t strong enough or … maybe you came back ‘wrong’, too. Like me.

“I mean, let’s face it, neither one of us are exactly poster-children for our missions just now,” Buffy pointed out judiciously.

Spike shrugged and sighed, shaking his head desolately and looking down at the floor. “Dunno, luv. Worked hard to be a magnificent vampire, didn’t I? William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers. An’ look at me now? Giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Sharing breakfast with a Slayer, talkin’ about heaven and feelings. What respectable vampire would be doing that? How the mighty have fallen.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Don’t go getting too Eeyore on me, Spike,” Buffy chided, squeezing his arm gently where her hand rested. “And, for the record, I actually have a lot of respect for you.”

Spike looked up, his blue eyes full of hope. “Yeah?”

“I respect anyone who brings me food,” she assured him brightly, reaching for another strip of bacon. “Pizza delivery guys, waiters, flight attendants, the hawkers at the ballpark, the guys who refill the vending machines…”

Spike nodded, allowing his mood to lighten with her joke and his agitation to fade. “Have to remember that, then, won’t I?”

Buffy smiled and nodded as she reached her fork into the container in front of Spike, which not only smelled delicious, but looked it, too.

“Slayer Rule number ten: A well-fed Slayer is a happy Slayer,” she advised him.

Spike smiled. “What are rules one through nine, then?” he wondered.

Buffy returned the smile mischievously. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“That a challenge, Slayer?” he asked, catching his bottom lip with his teeth as he studied her.

Buffy shrugged, adopting a serious expression. “Maybe. I guess we’ll see if you’re up to it, won’t we?”

Spike huffed a breath out in derision, leaning back in his chair and hooking his thumbs on either side of his belt buckle, splaying is fingers out across his groin to frame the bulge in his jeans. “I’m _up_ for anything, anytime. You, of all people, should know that by now.”

Buffy followed his hands with her eyes, waggling her brows at him mischievously. “So I see. I guess we’ll find if you’ve got what it takes to break the Sacred Slayer Rules of Life and Death. But, for right now, we’ll stick with Rule Ten,” she laughed, before sliding the whole container of huevos rancheros over in front of herself and digging in with alacrity.

* * *

 

Buffy cursed when she finally thought to look at her watch, and jumped up, shoving one last piece of bacon in her mouth. “I’ve got to go!” she exclaimed, still chewing.

“What’s the rush, luv?” Spike asked, reaching for her arm, trying to pull her back down.

“I have to work! Time, tide, and Doublemeat Palace waits for no man … or fry cook,” she informed him, grabbing her coat from one of the chairs and shrugging into it.

“I hate seein’ ya workin’ at that dump, Buffy,” Spike lamented, not for the first time.

“Yeah, well, apparently being dead is costly. All the money is nearly gone, and I’ve got bills to pay, not to mention keeping Dawn in clothes and shoes, which takes a small fortune.”

Buffy started climbing up the ladder, but Spike deftly grasped her around the waist and lifted her back down before she got to the third rung.  He held her back against his front, wrapping his arms around her torso. His breath was cool against her ear as he leaned in and whispered, “Stay with me, Slayer. You know you want to.”

Buffy wriggled her ass against a growing hardness in his jeans, and tilted her head to the side, inviting his lips.

Spike eagerly obliged, kissing and nuzzling her neck gently, before tracing the shell of her ear with his talented and dexterous tongue.

Buffy moaned as she felt the sparks begin to tingle through her, directly from his touch to the deepest part of her being. She longed to fall into them, to drown in the fireworks he created in her, to dance among the stars and find the light and hope he could spark in her.

“I … can’t,” her brain protested feebly, but her body pressed back against him, melding to his, fitting to him as if they had been made for each other, two parts of an enigmatic puzzle.

“You can,” Spike urged, murmuring against her ear with cool, tickling breath that sent goose-flesh racing down her body.

Buffy moaned, her eyes fluttering closed in the pleasure of his touch, in the sound of his voice. The irresponsible part of her agreed with him, whole-heartedly! She could stay here all day, chasing the darkness away. But the adult in her knew that if she missed work or was late again, she’d be out pounding the pavement looking for another below-poverty-level job just to get by on.

Reluctantly, and with considerable Slayer-esque effort, the adult won out.

Buffy turned slowly in Spike’s arms and caught his face between her hands, forcing him to stop.

“Come by the Palace later … after dark. I’ll have a dinner break at eight. We can …” Buffy shrugged a shoulder and dropped one hand from his face to the bulge in his jeans, cupping it gently. “… do something about that swelling you’ve got there.”

Spike cocked a brow at her. “Could do something now,” he tried again. “ _And_ later.”

Buffy shook her head and touched her lips to his, almost chastely. “Just later,” she mumbled against his mouth, “I promise to burn you to embers.”

Spike swallowed audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, then deepened the kiss, pulling her body tightly against his, his tongue parting her lips and exploring her mouth deeply, tasting, teasing, needing.

When the kiss broke, he rested his forehead against hers and replied, “Ya know I won’t get a bit of rest all day, you leavin’ me in this condition. I’m gonna fuck you into next week fer making me wait, Slayer.”

Buffy chuckled softly and pulled back. “Is that a threat, or a promise?” she teased with a quick wink, before turning and scampering up the ladder and out of sight.

Spike bit his bottom lip, a smile curving his lips as he watched her ass disappear up the ladder, despite his uncomfortable condition. Had she actually been flirting with him? Teasing him? Who was that woman and what has she done with the real Buffy?

On second thought, he didn’t want to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, is it possible that Spike 'came back wrong' when he was turned? Or is it just that William's soul is stronger than Angel's -- is that why he can keep his bloodlust under control when Angelus couldn't or wouldn't? We'll delve more into this as the story goes on.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts! Stop in and say hi! 
> 
> Thanks also to the wonderful PaganBaby for her extraordinary betaing skills! All errors you may find here are mine, cos I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> Will have more soon!


	7. Magnet and Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike meets Buffy on her dinner break and delivers on his promise.

* * *

 

 

[Song Referenced: Magnet and Steel, Walter Eagan with Stevie Nicks ](https://youtu.be/Ar5GaTC440M)

* * *

 

Buffy stepped out the back door of the Doublemeat Palace at precisely eight o’clock that evening, pulling her stupid clown hat off and scanning the darkness for Spike. It only took a second for him to step out of the shadows at the edge of the parking lot, his thumbs hooked in his belt, his hands splayed out over his groin, drawing her eye to the bulge in his jeans.

“Lookin’ fer somethin’, Slayer?” he asked, running his tongue across his teeth invitingly.

Buffy bit her bottom lip when she saw him, her heart jumped in her chest and speed off at a gallop as her body tingled with pent-up desire.  She’d been thinking about this moment all day. Heaven knew her job didn’t actually require any part of her brain, so it was free to devote itself to imagining this moment in vivid detail as she served the masses their daily dose of heart disease and cholesterol. She may have been able to ignore the need he’d kindled in her earlier for the sake of putting food on her table and paying the bills, but it had not left her. If anything, it had grown with each passing hour, and now she was on the verge of a nuclear meltdown if this pressure wasn’t released, and fast.

With the knowledge that Warren was in jail and all the Trio’s computer equipment had been turned into very expensive scraps, Buffy’s worry about being recorded had vanished, and her hunger for what Spike could give her had redoubled. She was across the space between them in a flash, drawn like a magnet to steel. Buffy’s lips crashed against his, her hands gripping his shoulders, as she pressed him back into the dark shadows of the vacant lot behind the restaurant. Spike’s backward momentum finally stopped when his back slammed against the trunk of a tree, jarring both of them to a stop as they fumbled wildly at the fabric between them, trying to keep their lips from parting for more than a split-second in the process.

Zippers and buttons were pulled free and a few seams were strained to the breaking point in the frenzy of removal. Pants were kicked off and trampled in the melee, shirts nearly torn off, but finally Buffy’s soft, warm body molded to Spike’s cold hardness. They came together like puzzle pieces too long parted, and that same feeling of euphoric, tingling sparks began to spread over her. Her nipples hardened into pebbles as her supple breasts pressed against Spike’s firm, muscular chest, sparking a flicker of light deep within her, warming her from the inside out, pressing the darkness back.

“Tell me what you want, Slayer,” Spike gasped against her mouth as his cock sprang free of its denim prison, searching frantically for her soft sheath of heated flesh.

Her hand was around his marble-hard length, stroking him firmly with long, yearning pumps, the pearl of pre-cum silky and slick beneath her fingers.   In one motion, she lifted herself up with her other hand and wrapped her legs around his hips, eager to take his thick, hard cock into her slick, hot pussy.

Buffy mumbled something against him, incoherent and muffled as she began guiding his thick, hardness to her throbbing entrance, lowering herself onto him with single-minded determination. She needed him. Now.

“Tell me,” he demanded, his voice rough with passion and need.

His cock was at her entrance now, barely touching her pulsing opening, but one of Spike’s strong hands grasped her sweet ass and stopped her from lowering down further. “Tell me,” he demanded one more time, pulling back to look at her, his eyes locking with hers.

“You,” she gasped out, breathless, yearning. “I want you.”

Spike bit his bottom lip, still holding her poised just above his aching cock. God, he wanted her. But he wanted her to say it almost as much.

“Say it,” he urged her. “Tell me what you want me t’ do. Say it!”

Buffy groaned in frustration, wriggling to free herself so she could take control back from him, but he had the leverage now and all she was doing was getting further away from her goal: his cock pounding deep inside her.

“I know you can say it,” he prompted again, squeezing her ass with a bruising grip. “Tell me.”

“Fuck me, Spike … fuck me. God, please, I want you.”

“Want, or need?” Spike persisted, enjoying this now that he had her talking.

“What the fuck difference does it make!?” Buffy demanded, getting more frustrated and angry by the moment. “BOTH!

“Now keep your promise or I swear I’ll dust you!” she threatened, her green eyes flashing with furious hunger and desire.

Spike grinned lasciviously and in the next moment pulled her ass down as he thrust up with all his strength, driving into her, spreading her tight, throbbing walls around his thickness with every last drop of his rock-hard demonic power and lust.

Buffy felt a scream of ecstatic pleasure rise in her throat and buried her face against Spike’s neck to muffle it, her teeth digging brazenly into the flesh of his trapezius. The world fell away in that moment of connection, nothing else mattered but this feeling of rapture. A glowing warmth bloomed inside her, driving the darkness back, and that feeling of hope and joy rose up in her once again.

His corded arms around her were the ultimate definition of strength, his mouth, so near her carotid, the greatest danger any Slayer could face, and yet she yearned to surrender to him. Everyone looked to her to be the strong one, to be in charge, to protect them, but in these moments with Spike she didn’t have to be that person, she could give in to him, and he was strong enough for the both of them.

Spike turned them, putting Buffy’s back against the tree, giving even more power to his thrusts. He drove into her with a demonic passion that eclipsed even his hunger for her blood, each thrust punctuated by a rumbling grunt of effort. Buffy’s legs tightened around his waist, threatening to break him in two, but he barely noticed. His senses were overloaded with the sight, sound, smell, and feel of this woman who filled his every waking thought and unconscious dream.

She needed him, she wanted him, and, God help him, he needed, wanted, and loved her with every fiber of his being.

“Harder … Spike … more! Harder!” Buffy gasped against him, her breath hot against his neck, her body jerking and demanding in his arms, her hands clutching at his shoulders, digging into his hard flesh.

A deep, resonant growl rumbled up from deep within him in reply. In the next moment, Spike had her on her back on the ground, her legs spread wide and pressed up, her ankles near her ears, opening her to him completely. He pounded madly into her sweet, tight quim, his hard flesh slapping rhythmically against her softness, driving his need home with every brutal stroke.

Her lust matched his as she trembled and quaked beneath him, her slick walls throbbing and squeezing around his hard length, taking all he had to give and returning it ten-fold. His cock slammed into her in long, desperate strokes, then changed to shallow, fast thrusts, sending her flying and falling and soaring in the clouds. 

“Yes, yes, yes…” was all she could gasp out, all her mind could conjure, as she let him take her back to heaven again and again and again.

“Fuck, Buffy … never … anyone … like …you.” Spike punctuated each word with a long, deep thrust of his aching cock into her, and she shuddered with each blow, her body responding to his words and actions, blooming with heat and unrestrained passion.

“Don’t … stop … please … Spike,” she pleaded with him, her fingernails sinking into the smooth flesh of his ass, drawing blood.

He didn’t. He wouldn’t. In fact, he wasn’t sure he could now if he tried.

Buffy had never had a lover like Spike. He was her equal in every way. There was no holding back with him, nothing she could do or say would shock him or physically hurt him. And he was teaching her to do and say some impressively-naughty things, and she rejoiced in the freedom to do or say anything she felt with him, knowing there would be no judgement.

He could read her body like a book, seeming to know when to slow down, when to speed up, and the exact moments to drive her over the edge into rapture. Over. And over. And over again. Lifting her ever higher into oblivion with each searing orgasm that burned through her.

And oblivion, that place where the darkness was drowned out by light, was exactly where she longed to be.

“Buffy …” Spike moaned against her neck, fighting to keep his demon back. He wanted to taste her, wanted to sink his fangs deep into her flesh almost as much as he wanted to cum inside her in this instant.

“Yes, Spike … yes! Spike … cum now … now, Spike, now!!” Buffy urged, digging her nails even deeper into the hard globes of his ass as trickles of blood ran down his pale, perfect skin.

At her words, Spike let go of every ounce of restraint he’d been exercising and slammed into her with such force that he plowed her body down, creating a Buffy-sized impression in the grassy, hard-packed ground beneath them. He heard her heart skip a beat, her breath catch in her chest, and felt her body begin to spasm and shudder beneath him yet again. Her heat and passion drifted off her body in waves, washing over him, engulfing him in her glowing embers. In that moment, he let go of all thought, all constraint, all control.

Buffy’s hips jerked up against him, her entire body and soul lost in the sensation of their mutual orgasm. With a guttural, savage roar of completion, Spike floated away with her into the ether. His cool seed spilled into her warm, welcoming body in blinding bursts of pure ecstasy, becoming part of her, if only for a while.

And then, he felt it. Or saw it. Or … experienced it. A flicker of light deep inside the darkness. Like someone had dropped a burning match into the bottomless depths of his hollowed-out soul. He hadn’t actually been sure it was still there, it had been so long since he’d even looked. But as he floated there with her among the stars, somehow removed from his body, he could feel it huddled in a corner, trying to hide from the darkness that surrounded it. Was that real? Or was it his imagination playing tricks on him?

Buffy finally remembered how to breathe, gulping air, as she gently drifted back to earth. She released the death-grip she had on his ass and slowly slid her arms up around his back to hold him to her, panting and trembling beneath his hard, beautiful body. Her warm breath heated his cool skin as she clung to him, her eyes still closed, still floating just above the ground, light as a feather, the darkness still driven back, those deep furrows inside her filled with a soft, glowing light.

Spike released her legs and they fell on either side of him like wet noodles, small electrical shocks still jerking them spasmodically. He collapsed atop her, allowing her to wrap her arms around him fully, reveling in the feel of her, her warmth, her softness and her strength, her power and passion.

As he lay there holding her, being held by her, he marveled at the light that still burned deep inside – maybe he hadn’t imagined it. Faint, flickering, barely there … but there, nonetheless. Could she be right? Had he come back ‘wrong’?  Had the Powers That Be accidentally left a small candle of humanity inside him, just waiting for the right person to light the wick?

And then he was kissing her, softly, reverently, covering her face and neck with adoration. If anyone could find it, kindle it, it would be this woman, this Slayer.

Buffy sild her arms up to his neck and caught Spike’s face between her hands, stopping his display of affection. She pulled his lips down to hers and kissed him as gently as dew on a rose petal, her lips like a ghost against his.

When the kiss broke, Buffy pressed her lips near his ear and whispered, “Did you feel it?”

Spike lifted up enough to look into her green eyes, his own blue orbs wide with astonishment and awe. He _had_ felt it, whatever ‘it’ was.  How could she know?

Although it was dark there where they lay, he could see her perfectly, and he nodded slowly, knowing she could feel him move, if not actually see the depth of wonder and ardor in his eyes.

“I love you, Buffy,” he whispered as gently as his growl-hoarsened throat would allow, watching her expression closely.

She didn’t flinch or turn away.  She didn’t scowl or argue that a monster like him couldn’t love anyone. She didn’t hit him or kick him in the bollocks or run away. But she didn’t reply either, at least not immediately.

Buffy reached up to touch a thick lock of platinum hair that had fallen out of place, a curl that hung down over his forehead. She wrapped it gently around one finger, then pulled it straight and let it go, watching it spring back naturally against his soft skin.

She smiled then and said, “I didn’t even know you had curls.” Then added, hastily, “On your head, I mean.” A rose-pink blush bloomed over her cheeks and she bit her bottom lip in embarrassment.

Spike smiled and shook his head. How could she be a wild vixen one moment, riding him like a sex goddess bound for perdition, and an innocent, blushing girl the next?

“Reckon there’s a bit about me you don’t know,” Spike admitted. “But, I’m willin’ t’ show you my curls if you’re willin’ to let me in.”

“Pretty sure you’re as far in as humanly, or vampirely, possible,” Buffy teased, squeezing her deepest muscles around his softened flesh to demonstrate how far inside her he still was.

“Best be careful, Slayer,” Spike warned, shifting his hips invitingly, but being careful to not pull out of her soft, wet heat – God, he wanted to stay buried in her forever. “Round two might go past yer dinner break.”

Buffy raised her brows, partly dubious, partly curious.

“Don’ tempt me, luv,” Spike warned, and she could, indeed, feel his length begin to swell and harden again inside her.

“I live to tempt you,” Buffy continued teasing, her tone light. “And … I’d like to see your curls,” she added, lowering her lashes coquettishly before looking back up at him earnestly.

Buffy took the rebellious curl and smoothed it back into place on his head. “Maybe later tonight we could patrol, then, tomorrow night we could take the night off. You could … come over for a movie. A romcom. I hear you like them.”

“Like a _date_ , Slayer?” Spike wondered, quirking his scared brow at her.

“Do you want it to be a date?” Buffy asked, chewing her full bottom lip adorably.

“You know I do,” he whispered, letting his eyes sweep slowly over her face, taking in every detail. He’d rarely seen her like this: relaxed, teasing, friendly, even happy. Certainly not with him – barring love spells – and lately not with anyone.

He took it all in like a breath of fresh, spring air, and, for the first time, he felt like there might be a chance for him, a chance for there to be a _them_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I would love to hear from you. hearts Drop in and say hi! It keeps my muse fat and sassy!
> 
> Will have their date next! What could possibly go wrong?


	8. Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A nervous Spike shows up for his date with Buffy, but it isn't exactly what he'd expected.

Spike smoothed his hair back and checked to make sure there was no cemetery dirt on his boots, before approaching the kitchen door at the Summers’ residence. Why was he so bloody nervous? It’s not like he’d never been in this house before. Not like he hadn’t watched a hundred movies sitting on that couch with Dawn over the summer. Not like he hadn’t done nearly everything with the Slayer one could possibly do without permanent injury. So why did the thought of this night make his stomach writhe like a den of snakes?

_Date._

He hadn’t been on a date in over 100 years, and even those he’d been on as a human were generally disastrous, or pathetic, at best. And the one time he’d tried to ‘date’ Buffy before could only be described as a catastrophically bad idea.

“Grow a bloody pair,” he admonished himself, pulling himself up to stand straight and forcing his feet to mount the steps to the reach the door.

He knocked tentatively, but no one apparently heard. Maybe he should’ve gone to the front door. But he wasn’t sure Buffy wanted anyone seeing him coming into the house. Steeling his nerve, he knocked again, harder.

This time Buffy appeared in the kitchen looking slightly confused, but then her expression lightened spotting him through the glass.

Buffy opened the door and Spike began to step in only to stop short when she began to speak.

“Spike? What are you—?” she began.

“Am I early? You said ‘tomorrow’ and that was yesterday, yeah? So today is tomorrow, best I can reckon,” he rambled nervously.

Buffy laughed and waved a hand. “No … I mean yes, today is tomorrow. I just meant what are you doing knocking at the back door?”

Spike drew in a relieved breath and looked back at the door a moment. “Well, didn’t want t’ make a fuss at the front,” he explained, turning back to look at her.

Buffy pursed her lips and nodded. “Well, I did invite you, so chances are fifty-fifty I wouldn’t punch you out for coming.”

Spike shrugged helplessly, completely missing her attempt at humor. What was she playin’ at? Did her friends know he was here? Dawn? Red? He doubted that seriously.

“Ummm, okay,” Buffy continued, breaking the awkward silence. “But, since when do you knock? Usually you run in like you own the place.”

“Different, innit? More … formal, I reckon. Tryin’ to be … proper,” Spike stammered nervously. He was out of his element. He felt like a landed guppy floundering around gasping for air on the dock, and he looked it, too.

Buffy chewed on her bottom lip, suppressing a grin. Who knew that inviting Spike on a date could throw him so far off his game? It was, dare she say? Cute.

“You look nice,” she offered, moving on. “New shirt?”

Spike reached up to tug nervously at the collar of his t-shirt before realizing he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt, but a button-down, Celtic blue dress shirt. He’d had a tie too, but felt weird wearing it, so he’d left it off, leaving the collar casual and open.

He nodded self-consciously, fidgeting with the buttons and the collar of the shirt.

“The blue brings out your eyes. I know black’s your go-to color, but I really like the blue on you.”

Spike nodded again, and mumbled something along the lines of, “Thanks.”

Suddenly realizing he was fidgeting, he deliberately lowered his hand and tucked his thumb into the pocket of his jeans to keep it still.

When he didn’t say anything more, Buffy waved a hand at the spray of gladiolas he held limply by his side in his other hand. “Are those for me?” she wondered, raising her brows in expectation.

“Oh! Errrr … right!” he stammered, lifting them up hastily and nearly smacking her in the face with them.

Buffy dodged the bouquet deftly, and grabbed it from his hand before he could do anything else dangerous with them.

“They’re lovely, thank you,” she offered sincerely, admiring the colorful spray of gladiolas. She hoped he hadn’t gotten them from one of the graves at the cemetery, but brushed the thought away – wherever he’d gotten them, it had been sweet of him to think of it.

Spike couldn’t help but smile now, the tension in him uncoiling slightly. “Always remind me o’ you, Slayer. Symbolize strength of character, faithfulness and honor, they do.”

Buffy looked up at him thoughtfully with a small hint of surprise in her expression. What a strange thing for Spike to know. Or maybe it wasn’t. He did spend a lot of time in cemeteries. But then, so did she and she didn’t know that. 

Buffy opened her mouth to remark on this, but couldn’t form the right words, so she settled on, “Let me just put them in water.”

Spike nodded and watched her turn and go to the sink. She retrieved a vase from one of the cabinets, filled it, and began arranging the flowers in it.  Spike took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm down. He was acting like a bumbling poofter, he needed to be ‘Spike’, not bloody ‘William’, he reminded himself.

“You know,” Buffy began off-handedly, still facing away from him. “Dawn mentioned that there was always a fresh, white gladiola on my grave … like every day, or at least every time she went there.”

Spike cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Did she, then?”

“Mmm-hmmm. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, would you?”

When Spike didn’t answer, Buffy turned back around to face him. He pressed his full bottom lip between his teeth, staring at her intently. Their eyes met and locked for a long moment, the silence nearly deafening in the cozy kitchen.

Finally, Spike cleared his throat and looked down at his shoes before admitting, “Never thought I’d ‘ave the chance t’ give you posies any other way. Couldn’t toss ‘em back at me from the grave, now could ya?”

Buffy stepped around the kitchen island, reaching him just as he looked back up. She took his face between her palms, resting her fingertips on his razor-sharp cheekbones, her green eyes delving tenderly into the cerulean blue of his.

“I’m not throwing them back at you now,” she assured him before touching a soft kiss on his lips.

Spike felt himself melting into her, and he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss. This he knew. This was solid ground where he felt comfortable with the Slayer. The heat of her flowed into him where their bodies touched. It was like the radiance of the mid-summer sun filling him with glowing coals of desire. He could get lost in that heat for a million years and still not have enough of it, still need just one more taste, one more drop of flame against his skin, one more …

Someone in the hallway behind them cleared their throat loudly and meaningfully.

“Pizza’s here,” Dawn announced. “I mean, unless you guys are just gonna neck in the kitchen all night.”

Spike and Buffy parted like a bucket of cold water had been poured over them, which it pretty-much had.

“Dawn! Didn’t anyone ever tell you that spying on people was rude?” Buffy demanded, her face burning red with more than just embarrassment.

“Uhh … you’re in the kitchen – in the house where I live,” Dawn pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. “Doesn’t take any James Bond super-spy skills to see you. I just walked in to get some paper plates.”

Spike looked from Dawn to Buffy, a sinking realization coming over him. This wasn’t a _date-_ date, it was a family movie night. He was such a fool! Again! How could he be so bloody stupid? He felt his own face begin to burn red, which was ridiculous, because it couldn’t, but somehow it did.

Spike whirled on his heel and started purposely for the door. “Ha-bloody-ha, Slayer. Guess you got me good with that one,” he growled, reaching for the doorknob.

“Spike! Wait!” Buffy called after him, catching his arm before he could open the back door. “I meant to tell you when you got here, but got distracted. I thought Dawn was going out with Wil. I didn’t know she already had plans to watch a movie with Clem tonight when I asked you. Honestly! I didn’t know,” she explained hurriedly.

Spike stopped with one hand on the doorknob, Buffy’s hand gripped tightly on his other elbow. “Please don’t go,” she requested gravely.

“We have pizza and wings,” Dawn offered brightly from behind the pair. “And onion blossoms,” she added temptingly.

Spike turned back and looked at Buffy, his eyes narrowed dangerously, the blue depths burning with hurt and anger. He searched her eyes, her expression, and her body language for any hint of mockery or deception, but couldn’t find any. Her eyes were soft, pleading; she looked genuinely upset about him leaving.

“Please,” she mouthed silently to him, her grip never lessening on his arm, her eyes locked, unwaveringly on his.

Spike looked up at Dawn, who was watching the pair with interest. “Onion from the Bronze?” he asked her with solemnity.

“Where else?” she assured him with a shrug.

“Got that spicy sauce, too?”

“Yup! Got a double order, just for you,” she offered, motioning with a tilt of her head for him to come back and join them.

Spike sniffed huffily and let go of the doorknob. “Well, since ya went to that trouble, I reckon…”

Buffy’s face broke out into a relieved smile. The grip she had on his arm lessened, but she didn’t let go, instead turning him and leading him toward the living room, as if he’d bolt if she released him completely.

“We rented ‘Monsters, Inc.’” Dawn called back. “I think it’s about Sunnydale, only with less death and destruction.”

“It’ll be fun … right?” Buffy whispered as they followed Dawn into the other room.

“A bloody laugh-riot, I reckon,” Spike replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. 

* * *

 

Clem was already there, waiting for them in the living room. Spike greeted his pale, saggy-skinned, floppy-eared, demon friend with a handshake and a genial slap on the back. “I see Dawn’s got ya missin’ poker night,” he joked.

“Oh, I’ll go later,” Clem explained. “But I thought I’d eat first to curb my appetite. Less tempted to snack, makes the kittens go further,” he explained confidentially, keeping his voice low.

Spike nodded knowingly. “Good plan, mate.”

Dawn had the food laid out on the coffee table in the living room like a buffet, and everyone dove in, filling up the good Chinet paper plates – only the best for company – with their first round of the fine cuisine on offer. Drinks were offered, beer for Clem and Spike, and Coke for Buffy and Dawn, with Dawn doing the fetching, being the youngest. As everyone settled in to eat and the conversation died, Dawn started the movie, sitting on the floor near one end of the couch. Spike and Buffy had taken up seats on the couch itself, and Clem was in the easy-chair to one side.

Everyone ate in companionable silence, with just sporadic conversation or comment, usually in the form of asking Dawn to get more drinks or more napkins, which she did with only minimal complaint, pausing the movie each time so she didn’t miss any of the riveting suspense.

When Spike and Buffy finally set their empty plates down on the equally-empty coffee table, Spike leaned back with a low, satisfied moan and got comfortable.  If he was gonna have to endure this group movie night thing, then at least he was gonna make the best of it.

He really didn’t pay much attention to the movie, but let his eyes wander over his companions. Dawn and Clem were kidding around in low tones, making editorial remarks about the monsters in Sunnydale not resembling the ones in the movie, and maybe those writers needed to come spend some time on the Hellmouth. Spike smiled to himself, watching Dawn, especially. She seemed in much better spirits since Buffy’s ‘lock in’ birthday party a couple of weeks ago, no doubt due, at least in part, to Buffy being home with her tonight instead of off dancing in the dark with him.

Spike let his eyes wander to Buffy, who had put her feet up on the coffee table and was leaning back comfortably, also watching Dawn rather than the movie. There was a small, satisfied smile on her lips that warmed Spike deep inside. Buffy and smiles – real smiles – hadn’t been on speaking terms of late.

Her gaze shifted, and she caught him watching her, but Spike didn’t look away or pretend he wasn’t doing just that. Instead, he motioned with one hand and a tilt of his head, inviting her to lean against him. 

Buffy looked back at Dawn and bit her lip, hesitating. It was her default setting with Spike: hide it; admit nothing; deny everything. Then Buffy rolled her eyes at herself. Dawn had seen them in the kitchen just a little while ago, and in the crypt the other night, of course she _knows_. Possibly the whole town knows by now. There could be billboards along the interstate announcing it for all Buffy knew.

Spike caught the hesitation and felt something inside himself contract. She’d invited him over here, now she was gonna play coy? Just as his indignation was about to surface, Buffy leaned into him, snuggling against his side, resting her head on his shoulder and pulling her feet up under her on the couch. Spike wrapped one arm around her and the coiled snake in his belly relaxed with a sigh of contentment.

Spike touched a soft kiss onto her temple, letting his lips linger there, taking in the scent of her. She smelled like bright sunshine and soothing vanilla, and, well, a little bit of Doublemeat Palace, but he ignored that. Buffy took one of his hands into hers, interlocking her fingers with his, and let out a sigh of her own, snuggling even closer against him, fitting her body against his perfectly.

Buffy let her eyes fall closed and felt a wave of serenity wash over her. All her friends and family were safe. There were no hell-gods or diabolical masterminds threatening to take over the world – well, as far as she knew. Angel, also as far as she knew, still had his soul and was not in danger of losing it. And she didn’t have to go back to work for another twenty-one and a half hours.

In that moment, all was right with the world.

Well, we all know that that just won’t do, don’t we?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you're enjoying this happy time, because that simply won't last! I hope you'll stop in an leave me a note. My muse loves hearing from you, as do I! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful beta and evil twin, PaganBaby, without whom none of this would be possible! And thanks also to her for the amazing banner for the chapter and the story! Doesn't she totally rock?? YES! The answer is YES!
> 
> More to come soon!


	9. Date-us Interruptus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Buffy's date takes an unexpected turn.
> 
> ** Notes: some dialogue taken directly from, and in homage to, the episode ‘As You Were’ written by Douglas Petrie. Copyright infringement not intended, just tribute to some amazing lines that I couldn’t pass up. **

“What did ya think, Buffy?” Dawn asked, turning to look at her sister, as the credits for the movie ran.

Buffy jerked awake at the sound of her name, sitting up abruptly away from Spike.

“Present!” she declared, raising one hand, then quickly lowering it as she realized she wasn’t in fifth-period algebra. Thank God.

Dawn quirked a brow at her as she rose from her seat on the floor. “I see the movie really held your attention,” her sister teased as she began gathering up all the empty take-out containers, paper plates, and cups from the coffee table.

“Oh, yeah … it was very … realistic,” Buffy replied, clearing the sleep from her brain. “I felt like I had a vampire and a demon right there in the room with me,” she joked.

“It was animated,” Dawn informed her, rolling her eyes. “And they were monsters, not demons.”

“You say potato, I say po-tah-to,” Buffy replied defensively, then shrugged and said, “Sorry, I guess I was more tired than I thought.”

Buffy then turned her apologies to Spike. “I guess that wasn’t what you had in mind for a date, huh?”

Spike shrugged. “Had worse,” he admitted. In fact, watching her peaceful face as she dreamed, feeling her relaxed body against him as she slept in his arms, was perhaps the best date he’d ever been on.

Buffy laughed. “Me too,” she agreed. “Plus, bonus points for no one dying,” she added, rolling her eyes. “That’s not pathetic at all, huh?”

Spike shrugged again and gave her a small smile. “Maybe together we’re less pathetic, luv. Just needed to find the right person t’ date, eh?”

Buffy returned the smile and tilted her head in acknowledgement before standing up and stretching her body, raising her arms over her head, arching her back, and coming up on her tiptoes with the effort. A peek of flesh showed around her middle, her shirt rising up, as she leaned her body from side to side, stretching her spine.

Spike watched her with growing interest … and growing other parts of his anatomy, too. He longed to touch that little swath of tanned skin that seemed to wink at him, teasing and taunting. Somehow it felt like the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

“Maybe we should … patrol a bit?” he suggested, adjusting the fit of his jeans and giving her a smoldering look, which left no question as to what he had in mind by ‘patrolling’.

“There’s a poker game at Willy’s tonight I thought I’d catch,” Clem announced to the room at large, also standing up. Then, turning to Spike he added more quietly, “If you aren’t coming, could you loan me some kittens until Monday? I’ll pay ya back double.”

Buffy gave Spike a gimlet-eyed glare, reminding him of her aversion to kitten poker.

“Errr …” Spike wavered, looking from Buffy to Clem and then back to the Slayer as he also stood up. “No … no kittens. Not a one. Haven’t even seen one in days … weeks, maybe,” he rambled.

“The vampire doth protest too much, methinks,” Buffy chastised before rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

“Well, there might be one litter I been savin’ back behind the dumpster in the alley behind—,” Spike began.

“Spiiike,” Buffy threatened.

“Errr, sorry, mate … got no kittens,” Spike finished, shrugging helplessly at Clem.

“Kittens? Are we getting a kitten?” Dawn asked enthusiastically, catching the end of the conversation as she came back from the kitchen.

“No, no kittens,” Buffy replied firmly. “I can barely feed _you_ , let alone a kitten.”

Dawn huffed and rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue further. “Clem, I have some of those super-spicy nacho chips you like. I forgot to put them out, they’re in the kitchen. You can take them home for later.”

“Oh! That would be wonderful! Maybe I can use those at the game since I don’t have any kittens,” he replied as he followed Dawn into the other room to retrieve them.

Spike gave him a doubtful look, but Clem shrugged, observing, “You never know.”

Just then, the doorbell rang, and someone began banging on it a second later.

Buffy looked at the clock. A bit late for visitors, and Willow wouldn’t knock. She frowned as the banging intensified and strode over to open it, already annoyed with whoever it was.

“Xander, I swear, if you’ve come to lecture—” she began angrily, pulling the door open to reveal a tall man with short-cropped brunette hair and mid-western, boy-next-door good looks. He was dressed in all black tactical gear, head-to-toe, and armed to the teeth.

“Buffy! Hi! Thank goodness, you’re home! We’ve been chasing a demon all the way from South America – badass sucker – I could really use your help with it,” the man proclaimed in an impatient rush of words.

“Riley?” Buffy questioned, her brows knit together in confusion, her voice disbelieving.

“Yeah, it’s me, Buffy. I’ll explain later, but there’s not much time,” he continued, looking back at a black Humvee that was parked in front of her house and then back at her, clearly expecting her to come with him.

“Riley Finn?” Buffy repeated, sounding shell-shocked, looking him up and down. “Have you always been so … _tall_?” she asked, a bit dazed.

During this time, Spike had made his way over to the door and stood next to Buffy, deliberately blocking most of the opening. He wrapped an arm around Buffy’s waist, protectively – or was that possessively? – before speaking.

“If there’s a new demon in town, then me and the Slayer’ll handle it. Don’t need any vampire-whore addicted tin soldier gettin’ in the way,” he snarled derisively at Finn.

Riley blinked, taking in the tableau. To Buffy’s credit, she didn’t pull away from Spike, but she didn’t return any sign of affection, either.

“Uhhh, Riley, you remember Spike, right? Spike … Riley Finn,” Buffy waved her hand between the two men, introducing them as if either one could ever forget the other.

“Awkward, much?” she muttered to herself, preparing for … what? World War Three, perhaps.

“What the … You’re with _Spike_ now?” Riley asked, not missing Spike’s blatant display of possession. There was a war between confusion and revulsion fighting for prominence in the soldier’s expression – loathing disgust won out.

“Needed a little monster in ‘er man, I reckon,” Spike gloated, running his tongue along his teeth suggestively and pulling Buffy just the slightest bit closer.

Buffy plastered a fake smile on her lips as she elbowed the vamp in the ribs, making Spike flinch and let out a low grunt of pain. “Shut. Up,” she demanded through her clenched-tooth-smile, so low that Spike could barely hear her.

Of course, hearing her didn’t mean Spike would listen. The vamp recovered quickly and continued taunting Riley. “Slayer needs a man who don’t run off when the goin’ gets tough. Bloody coward … afraid to face a hell-god, are ya?”

“Spike, we actually _all_ ran away from Glory, remember?” Buffy reminded him, turning an impatient glare on him.

Spike sniffed. “Yeah, well, we all came back, didn’t we? But Captain Cardboard was too busy polishin’ his—” Spike curled his free hand into a fist and began making a pumping motion, which might’ve been mimicking a Slayer repeatedly staking a demon, but wasn’t.

Buffy swatted at his hand, grabbing his wrist, pulling it across his body, and holding it down against her side in a death grip that would’ve cut off his circulation if he’d had any.

“—gun,” Spike finished with a satisfied grin, mocking Riley.

“What is it they say about blokes who need to play with guns?  Trying to compensate for somethin’? I hear, the bigger the gun, smaller their di—”

Buffy’s elbow in Spike’s ribs cut him off with an ‘oomph’ of expelled breath.

Riley glowered at Spike. “Can’t you shut him up?” he demanded, shifting his gaze to Buffy.

“No so far,” she muttered, giving Spike a glower of her own, twisting his wrist a bit to try and make her position clear to Spike.

Riley shook his head, dismissing Spike, and focused back on the Slayer. “What is this about a hell-god?”

Buffy waved a hand dismissively. “She was the big-bad du jour last year. We saved the world. Again. I died.”

She shrugged as bewilderment washed over Riley’s face as he stared at her, his mouth moved, opening and closing, but no words came out.

“It didn’t stick,” she explained, perhaps unnecessarily.

“You can even visit my grave,” she added brightly, giving Riley time to recover. “I understand it’s a hotspot for vampire raves on weekends and holidays. Every vampire wants to dance on the Slayer’s grave, apparently,” Buffy explained, her smile turning a little more genuine.  “I should charge admission,” she mused contemplatively, more to herself than Riley.

“You look … really good for being dead,” he stammered out finally. “And the hair’s different, I like it.”

“Oh, thanks!” Buffy replied cheerily, smoothing her free hand over her short hair. “It’s amazing what some sun and a good moisturizer will do to get rid of the pallor of the casket.

“You look good too,” Buffy reciprocated. “That scar across your eye is really impressive.”

“Oh, this?” Riley raised a hand to touch the long scar that cut vertically through his left eye. “Bonadari demon. They were barely able to save my eye. Had to fly to Switzerland for the operation.”

“Your insurance covers that?” Buffy wondered, shocked, finally dropping her hold of Spike’s hand.

“Oh yeah! We’ve got the best! No co-pays,” Riley confirmed.

“Dental, too? What about optometric?”

“Totally covered,” Riley assured her, waving a flat hand out, palm down, in demonstration.

“Oi!” Spike interrupted, releasing his grip on the Slayer’s waist and taking a small step away from Buffy in his annoyance so he could plant his hands on his hips. “Thought you were in a hurry, soldier-boy? Something ‘bout a demon?”

Buffy blinked. “Oh! Right! What’s the scoop on this demon?”

Riley reverted into commando mode, still standing in the doorway since Buffy never had invited him inside, and Spike certainly wasn’t going to.

“I've been up for 48 hours straight tracking something bad, and now it's come to Sunnydale. Suvolte demon. Rare, lethal ... nearly extinct, but not nearly enough. We've been tear-assing through every jungle from Paraguay up, taking out nests. As soon as we put one Suvolte down, a dozen take its place. They're breeders, Buffy. One turns into twenty, twenty becomes two hundred. They grow fast and are nothing but breeding and killing machines. This gets out of hand and there's a war with humans? Humans are gonna lose.”

“So they're like really mean tribbles,” Buffy observed, getting an amused snort from Spike and a blank look from Riley. Buffy waved a hand in dismissal. “Never mind.”

“We had a tracker on it, but it’s gone dark,” Riley continued, pulling a gadget from his belt and opening it up to show the blank screen in demonstration.

Buffy looked at it. “Your cute little James Bond gizmo isn’t doing anything,” she pointed out, tapping a finger on the screen as if that would fix it – hey, it worked on the TV sometimes.

“Exactly. We lost the signal last night, but it was heading straight for Sunnydale. I think it’s heading to the Hellmouth to spawn,” he explained clipping the gizmo back to his belt.

“Last night?” Buffy asked, giving Spike a meaningful glance. “Did this tribble happen to look something like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle crossed with the thing from ‘Alien’?”

“And stand ‘bout yea high,” Spike added, lifting his hand up as high as it would go.

Riley looked from one to the other of them. “Yesss,” he answered slowly. “Don’t tell me…”

Buffy shrugged and announced proudly, “We killed it last night. So, I guess that takes care of that.”

“Don’t see what the big bloody deal was. Maybe you lot ‘ave too many toys and not enough bollocks,” Spike suggested.

“Maybe if you had a few brain cells left in your bleached head you would’ve heard me say it was a tracking mission!” Riley retorted angrily. “Did you happen to check and see if it had already laid its eggs, smart guy?”

“Well, why the bloody hell didn’t you kill the bugger before it got knocked up, instead of just taggin’ it? Woulda’ saved a good bit o’ trouble, dontcha think?” Spike shot back.

“We shot it full of holes! It took out most of my men! Nothing brought it down!” Riley retorted, angrily.

“Ya know what I found effective in bringin’ it down?” Spike twisted his hands in a gesture mimicking breaking someone’s neck. “Oh, but I forgot, you’d have to get yer hands dirty like that, might chip a nail. Reckon mani-pedi nights are hard to come by in bloody Paraguay,” he sneered.

Before Riley could respond further, Dawn and Clem came back into the room from the kitchen, carrying bowls, spoons, and three half-gallon containers of assorted ice cream for dessert.

“I forgot we had ice cream!” Dawn began before seeing who was at the door. “Riley?” she questioned, her brows knit together in confusion. “What are you—”

Riley looked toward Dawn and Clem when she spoke, over Spike’s shoulder, but before she could finish her question his gun was drawn, and he was raising it in her direction. “DEMON!” he exclaimed. “DAWN! GET DOWN!”

Dawn stood, frozen, a half-step in front of Clem, just staring at Riley, completely confused.

In the next moment several things happened almost instantaneously:

Buffy lunged for the gun, yelling, “NOOO!” at the top of her lungs.

Spike whirled around and bounded several feet in the air over the coffee table toward Dawn and Clem. He spread his arms out and caught Dawn with one arm, Clem with the other, riding them both down to the floor with the power of his leap.

Riley’s gun fired, deafening in the small space.

The next instant was chaos in the Summers living room. Buffy slammed Riley’s hand against the door frame, dislodging the gun. It fell to the floor with a clatter and Riley gasped in pain as his fingers were crushed against the solid wood. But Buffy wasn’t done, she twisted his arm behind him and drove the soldier downward. She kicked hard against the side of his leg, eliciting a scream of pain from him and a satisfying crunching sound from his knee. He collapsed all the way down to the ground then, face down, writhing in pain. The soldier turned his head to the side to breathe, trying to get loose from her grip, and gasping for breath through the agony, but Buffy stopped all struggle when she pressed her booted-foot down on the side of his neck.

“Dawn! Are you hurt?” she screamed, looking at the tangle of humanity – and demonity –  sprawled on the floor on the other side of the room. “Dawn! Answer me! Spike! Clem!”

Clem disentangled himself from the other two first, patting up and down his flabby body, checking for wounds, but found none. He gave Buffy a thumbs-up and sat down heavily on the couch.

“Buffy!” Dawn screamed, scrabbling out from under a moaning and writhing Spike, bowls and silverware clattering as she moved. “Spike’s shot! Oh my God! Buffy! He’s bleeding! Help him! He’s dying!”

Spike finally rolled over and managed to sit back against one wall, a string of colorful curse words flowing freely from his lips. Ice cream ran down his neck, chest, and stomach where he had landed on it, smashing the cartons that Dawn and Clem had been holding. 

He cradled one arm against his chest with the other, wincing. “Not. Dying,” he finally gritted out between clenched teeth when the litany of expletives ended. “Bloody chip,” he cursed, his eyes clamped tightly closed, trying to hold his head and his arm at the same time, but having limited success. He couldn’t figure out why the chip had fired, usually it wouldn’t if he didn’t actually mean harm. But then, he _had_ meant harm – to Riley Finn. The bloody thing just got confused about who he was aiming at, apparently.

“You son of a bitch!” Buffy screamed at Riley, pressing down harder with her foot against his neck wondering just how hard she’d have to press break it. Not much more, she thought.

“You could’ve killed Dawn! Clem is a friend of ours, he’s not a demon! …Well, he’s a demon, but not a _demony_ -demon,” she amended. “He never hurt anyone … except maybe kittens, which I am firmly against, but it’s hard to be judgmental of other people’s dietary choices when you work at the Doublemeat Palace.” She shook herself and refocused. “He’s a guest in my house! You fucking shot Spike! _And_ you ruined three cartons of premium ice cream! Those aren’t cheap, buddy!

“Guns are never helpful!” she finished, lifting her foot momentarily off Riley’s neck to bring it down on the gun in question and smashing it into little bits.

From the open doorway behind Buffy a woman’s voice asked calmly, “Sorry to interrupt, but what are you doing with my husband?”

Buffy’s head whirled around, but she didn’t loosen the grip on Riley’s arm. Buffy took in the woman’s appearance, doing a quick scan from head to toe: tall, athletic, long brunette hair pulled back into a tail, dark eyes, black outfit, gun, pretty face. She didn’t recognize the newcomer. It certainly wasn’t Dru, who was the only woman she could think of that might have some claim over the man she was ‘with’ these days. Maybe there _were_ billboards up, after all.

“I’m not _with_ anyone’s husband! Spike’s not married, for God’s sake!” The Slayer turned back to look at Spike, who was starting to recover, at least from the chip firing. “Tell me you’re not married!!”

Spike began to shake his head, but thought better of it. “Relatively sure I’d remember that, luv,” he wheezed out, still cradling his arm as Dawn tried to staunch the bleeding, which was coming from his upper back, with a roll of paper towels.

The brunette looked confused. “Not him,” she corrected, then pointed at Riley. “Him!”

“Huh?” Buffy replied, looking equally confused, but lessening the pressure on Riley’s neck a bit.

“Buffy, my wife, Sam. Sam, meet Buffy, the Slayer,” Riley gasped out from the floor as he tried to turn a bit to lessen the pressure on his shoulder joint where Buffy held his arm up behind him.

“You’re Buffy!” Riley’s wife enthused, extending her right hand out towards the Slayer in greeting.

Buffy’s brows seemed to be drawn together and stuck in a permanent furrow. She switched hands holding Riley’s arm and returned the gesture, reaching her right hand out toward the woman.

“I’ve heard so much about you!” Sam continued, pumping Buffy’s hand enthusiastically with both of hers. “Riley’s told me so many stories! I’ve been looking forward to meeting you!”

Sam stopped, suddenly remembering Riley. “Ummm … what did he do?” she inquired, looking down at her husband and finally releasing Buffy’s hand.

“He bloody shot me!” Spike replied, pushing himself to his feet gingerly, still cradling his left arm. “In the back. Again! Sick and bloody tired of you soldier-boys shooting me, I am! Grow a bloody pair and quit hiding behind yer toys, shootin’ people in the back!

“You ruined my bloody shirt, too,” he added belatedly, looking down at the ice-cream and blood-stained mess.

“And you would be Buffy’s unmarried … boyfriend?” Sam inquired, eying him.

“T-that’s Spike,” Riley choked out before either Buffy or Spike could react to the ‘boyfriend’ moniker.

“The vampire? As in Hostile 17?” Sam inquired, giving Buffy a quizzical look.

“That’s right,” Spike replied. “The hostile vampire who’s bleedin’ all over the carpet,” he added.

“Oh. Uhhh, okaaay,” Sam replied warily, taking in Buffy’s worried expression and Dawn’s attempts to stop the bleeding. “I have an A-130 Military Field Trauma Medical Kit in the Humvee,” the soldier offered, taking a step toward the door to retrieve it.

“I have a First Aid Kit from Allen’s Drug Store under the bathroom sink,” Buffy countered.

“Mine’s fully stocked with sterile instruments to treat injuries such as gunshot wounds, and for field surgery,” Sam continued.

“We use filet knives, pliers, and duct tape,” Buffy informed her casually, still holding Riley down. “Sometimes we pour alcohol on them.”

Sam wasn’t sure whether to look impressed or disgusted by this revelation, but continued, “I have military combat medic training; I’ve extracted bullets from men before.”

“You win,” Buffy assented, dropping Riley’s arm and removing her boot from his neck. She gave him one short kick in the ribs for good measure before stepping away from him, drawing a ‘whoof’ of expelled breath from the downed soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where will the arrival of Riley and Sam lead? Did Buffy and Spike kill the Suvolte before it laid its eggs? If not, where are they? We'll find out soon!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I loved letting Spike snark at Riley, and Buffy beat him up, though not sure it was worth Spike getting shot ... but maybe. What did you think? Stop in and let me know! I'd love to hear from you!
> 
> Thanks again to my wonderful beta reader, PaganBaby, without whom this story would not have happened at all. Any errors are mine cos I just can't stop fiddling. Thanks also go to her for the amazing banner for the chapter and the story! All the banners you see are hers, and they all rock! I can't thank her enough for sharing her talents!!


	10. Bite Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam gets the bullet out of Spike, but the injury leaves him unable to fight. With the possibility of a horde of Suvolte demons in town, Buffy makes a decision that could be disastrous.

* * *

 

 

Spike sat on the closed lid of the commode in the upstairs bathroom shirtless, facing the tank, his back, and the bullet wound, exposed. Two sets of female eyes examined it, and fingers delved gingerly around the wound, trying to determine the angle of entry.

“I don’t think it went into the bone,” Sam assured him as she reached into her kit for some disinfecting swabs.

Spike watched her over his shoulder and rolled his eyes. “Don’ need those, pet. Vampire, remember?” he pointed out.

“Oh … right,” she hesitated, putting them back down. “I’ve never actually worked on a vampire before.”

“Shock, that is,” Spike grunted, crossing his arms on the top of the tank and laying his forehead down on it. “Just get on with it.”

“Are you sure you don’t need some pain killers?” the brunette offered, reaching into the kit again.

“The only pain I need killed is that blighter downstairs,” he assured her.

Sam looked a little confused, then nodded, realizing his meaning. “Yeah, Finn can be a little … over-zealous.”

“Some things never change,” Buffy muttered from behind her, watching the proceedings over Sam’s shoulder.

The black ops soldier picked up some forceps from her kit, preparing to remove the bullet. “You might want to hold him still,” she suggested to Buffy.

“Don’t need t’ be held still, not a bloody poofter,” Spike assured her, waving Buffy off before returning to his former position with his head down on his folded arms.

Sam shot a questioning look at Buffy, but Buffy just shrugged and waved a hand indicating that the medic should continue.

Sam took a deep, steadying breath and opened the wound with the forefinger and thumb of one gloved hand before slipping the forceps in, following the trajectory of the bullet, which had entered a few inches below his left shoulder blade and traveled up toward his scapula. Spike tensed beneath her, but good to his word, did not move or even breathe as she searched for the projectile. 

His bleeding, which had slowed, began again in earnest as she probed deeper and deeper for the bullet. It had been deeper than she thought, but finally the end of the forceps touched metal.

“Got it,” she declared, opening the pinchers and gripping the flattened lead slug tightly. She tugged on it, but it didn’t budge. “Damn. It went through the cartilage, it is in the bone after all … this might hurt.”

Spike would’ve told the bint that it already DID bloody hurt, but didn’t trust himself to stop with that as a few other more malevolent thoughts roared through his mind, so he just kept quiet and remained still.

Sam tugged again more forcefully, pressing one hand on Spike’s back for leverage as she pulled with the other. In the end, she had to twist back and forth three times while pulling hard to get the slug free from the bone and cartilage in his shoulder where it had lodged.

Spike’s body went as rigid as stone beneath her, but, true to his word, he still did not move. With one last hard jerk, she pulled the bullet free, and even more blood streamed from the re-opened wound. Sam dropped the forceps and bullet into the sink and grabbed some gauze, pressing it against the wound to staunch the bleeding again.

Spike remained silent and still as a corpse as she finished, putting five neat stitches in his back to close the hole.  She dampened some more gauze and began to clean the blood off Spike’s back, but Buffy took it from her and, with a small nod of thanks, the Slayer dismissed the medic.

Buffy leaned down close to Spike’s ear and whispered, “She’s gone, you can breathe now, tough guy.”

The Slayer kept cleaning his back gently, getting all the blood off. Finally, she felt his ribs begin to move shallowly beneath her hand, slowly becoming deeper and more regular.

“Don’ need t’ breathe,” Spike reminded her after a minute or so.

“You do if you want to curse, moan, or scream,” she countered.

Spike began to snort a laugh, but stopped abruptly, his face twisting into a grimace of pain. “Fucking pillock,” he growled. There was no question to whom he referred.

“Can you stand up? I’ll clean the rest,” Buffy offered, tossing the bloody gauze away and reaching for a washcloth.

Spike did, very slowly, still holding the injured arm against his body and being careful not to jar it as he turned to face her.

“Hurts bad, huh?” Buffy asked as she began cleaning his neck and chest.

“Na, jus’ thought I looked hot this way,” Spike retorted, letting her move his arm a bit to clean under it.

Suddenly tears welled in Buffy’s eyes and she turned away abruptly, ostensibly to rinse the cloth in the sink.

“Hey,” Spike beckoned mildly, reaching his good arm out to touch her. “I’m fine, Buffy. No permanent damage, yeah?”

Buffy nodded jerkily, but didn’t turn around. “Thank you … Dawn … I …” she stammered, finally turning back to face him. “I face death every day … it’s jaded me. I sometimes forget how fragile life is. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to Dawn. ‘Thank you’, isn’t enough, I know, but … it’s all I have.”

Spike gave her a small smile and cupped her cheek in his palm, brushing away a tear with his thumb. “You never have to thank me, Buffy. Told ya before I’d protect the bit, nothin’s changed. My promise is until the end of the world, yeah?”

Spike looked around the cheerful bathroom, taking it in. “Appears the world is still spinning,” he observed, looking back at her.

Buffy nodded, taking a deep breath to calm her roiling nerves, and began wiping the last of the sticky ice cream and blood mixture off his stomach.

“Not just the bit, Buffy,” Spike continued, reaching a hand out to lift her eyes up to his. “You too. Till the end of the world. I’ll be here for ya … whatever you need. You know that, eh?”

She couldn’t help but believe him. The depth of emotion and devotion in his blue eyes was bottomless. She found herself wanting to fall into them, to drown there in the ardor that welled up from his heart.

Buffy nodded again, a little more tentatively, before dropping her gaze back to the job at hand, her mind considering all that had happened and all that now needed to be done. They could have a serious problem out there if that demon had spawned, a problem that would need to be handled immediately, if not sooner.

With the last of the goo removed from Spike’s torso, Buffy tossed the dirty cloth into the sink and steeled herself, facing him – her mind made up.

“I need you to feed,” she announced without preamble. “From me.”

Spike’s brows hit his hairline. “What the bloody hell for? Told ya, I’m fine.”

“You are the definition of un-fine. I know you’ll _be_ fine, but I need you fine now-ish, and there is no fine in that shoulder in the foreseeable future. We might have a whole horde of those blood-thirsty tribbles to put down and all I’ve got out there for backup is Mr. and Mrs. NRA. And he’s a little worse for wear; I might’ve broken his leg … and arm ... and a few fingers … maybe a rib or two.”

“Shame, that,” Spike interjected with mock remorse. 

Buff rolled her eyes, continuing, “I need you at 100%, sooner rather than later. Thus, the feeding. I know Slayer blood is a whole lot more powerful than pig’s blood – it’ll get you back in the game, which is where I need you,” she finished, holding her wrist up and out toward him.

“Bloody hell, Slayer. I’m not gonna …”

“Yes, you are. Spike, this is no time to be noble or honorable or decent or whatever you’re trying to be. I need the demon tonight, not the man, and I need him strong. You heard what Riley said about these demons – about how they multiply. It took both of us to get that one down, if there’s a horde of them out there, I’ll need your help with them.”

Spike just stared at her, his gaze hard and unwavering, his jaw set in stubborn defiance.

Buffy huffed out a breath. “Do you want me going to war with a bunch of tribbles with just those two backing me up?”

“I can fight,” he protested, but didn’t move his arm, which he still held protectively against his chest.

Buffy punched his injured shoulder with barely enough power to be considered a love tap between them, and he snarled and stepped back, doubling over in pain.

“Feed. Now,” she demanded. Stepping forward and again offering her wrist to him. “I know how to make you do it,” she informed him flatly. “But I’d rather not.”

Spike glared up at her from his bent-over position, then lowered his gaze to her offered wrist. He could smell the blood, sweet and hot, he could hear it thrumming through her veins, he could even feel the heat of it, and, heaven help him, he yearned for it.

He lifted his stubborn, blue gaze back up to hers. “Can’t make me, Slayer. I’m not Angel.”

Buffy screwed up her face in frustration, squeezing her eyes closed and clenching her fists. “I know that, Spike, but you’re still a vampire and I’m still the Slayer,” she ground out, her jaw clenched in exasperation.

Then she opened her eyes, let her expression relax, and met his steely gaze. “Please,” she implored, her voice tender. “For me. I need you beside me in this. If you’re going to stand by me until the end of the world, then I’d rather that not happen tonight.”

Spike pursed his lips, wanting to refuse, but she was right. He couldn’t fight like this, and he couldn’t send her out to fight with two-thirds of the Three Stooges as her only backup. He finally, reluctantly, nodded.

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out in a relieved sigh, then extended her wrist to him again.

Spike stood up slowly, and grasped her arm with his good one. “Do ya have a stake?” he asked, not taking his attention off the throbbing vein beneath her thin skin.

“No.”

Spike snorted. “That’s a bloody first,” he muttered mostly to himself, but his attention was still on her pulsing vein.

“I don’t need one,” Buffy contended.

Spike looked up at her then. “You do. I might not be able to stop in time. You might have to…”

“You’ll be able to stop,” she asserted confidently.

Spike scowled at her. “Did Finn hit you in the bloody head? Have you gone daft?”

“No and no. I … I just … I trust you. You could’ve … I mean … the chip. It’s not what’s stopped you from hurting us … it’s not what’s kept you here, it’s not what’s made you protect Dawn … or me. You could’ve hurt any of us any time if you’d wanted to – killed us. We had our guard down around you; it would’ve been easy. I was asleep in your crypt the other night, for heaven’s sake! If you wanted to drain me, you could’ve! But you didn’t, and you aren’t going to start now.”

“Pffft,” Spike spat, shaking his head in denial. He dropped her wrist, looking around the bathroom for … there! A plunger with a wooden handle. He picked it up and brought the end of it down against the edge of the tub, breaking off the plunger part and leaving a jagged end on the wooden dowel.

“Hey! New rule in this house: if you break it, you buy it!” Buffy chastised as he handed her the rounded end of the improvised stake.

She took it reluctantly. “I won’t need it.”

“You might.”

“I won’t stake you.”

“You will,” he assured her. “You’re still the Slayer, I’m still a vampire,” he threw the words back at her.

Buffy’s mouth pressed into a hard line, but she didn’t say anything further. Arguing with a fence post was more effective than arguing with Spike. Stubborn asshole.

“You might want t’ sit down,” he suggested.

“I’m not gonna faint, I’ve been bitten before,” Buffy protested indignantly.

“Not by me,” Spike purred, tilting his head and giving her a smoldering look.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Modest much?”

Spike twitched his head in a sort of shrug, careful not to move his injured shoulder, a salacious smile curving his lips. “Just honest, pet.”

“Just get it over with, we’re wasting time,” she urged, again extending her left wrist to him, the stake held loosely in her right.

Spike stepped up close to her and once again took her arm in his good hand, lifting it to his lips. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, taking in the heady scent of Slayer with adrenaline still flowing through her blood. There was nothing else in the world like that scent, and it pulled at his demonic need, rousing his darkest desires.

His cool lips closed over her warm flesh, his tongue gently stroking over the throbbing vein there. He could feel every beat of her heart against his tongue, feel the heat of her, the power inside her. He felt every ounce of apprehension leave Buffy’s body as he suckled her skin gently with his soft lips and talented tongue, using all of his one hundred plus years of experience to mesmerize her, tangling her in his web like a spider would a fly.

He knew the exact moment to strike and he waited for it, weaving the spell of his touch around her, waiting for her surrender. They always surrendered in the end. He’d done it so many times, it was part of him now, second nature … or perhaps first nature.

In the split second he felt her defenses drop, his demon rose without bidding, and his fangs sank into her flesh, cutting through her like a knife through warm butter. He heard her gasp, felt her shudder in pleasure, and it filled him with a dark, bone-deep hunger.

The stake fell from her right hand, clattering on the tile floor, and his demon rejoiced. And then she fell, as he knew she would, her knees buckling beneath her. It was a slow descent to the bathroom floor, as if she were melting beneath him, and she was. He came with her, following her down, connected, part of her, her life flowing into him like the sweet nectar from a delicate flower.

The next notch on his Slayer belt was at hand, trembling and gasping with the sensuality of his invasion, floating with the pleasure of his saliva, now flowing through her veins as her blood flowed through his. Her life poured into him like manna from heaven, hot and sweet, with just the perfect tang of fear and anger from the altercation with Riley.

She would be his … forever his. He could feel her heart-rate beginning to slow and then race, and slow again. The demon moaned around her sweet flesh. Soon. She would be his soon.

“Spike …” Buffy groaned, regaining a modicum of conscious thought through the fog.

Spike purred a deep rumble against her skin like a contented tiger. Soon … his.

“William…” she moaned, before losing consciousness again.

Spike jerked back like he’d been shot – again – not retracting his fangs first and ripping her tender flesh in the process. His eyes were wild with terror and panic as he saw more of her blood flowing from the wound into a wide puddle on the tile beneath her hand.

“Buffy!” he exclaimed, clamping his mouth down on the wound again, but this time pressing his tongue against it hard to staunch the bleeding. Another trick he’d learned from Dru: his saliva would help heal wounds on humans, stop the flow of blood. It was how they kept victims alive for days to feed on again and again and again. 

When he felt the bleeding stop and the wound begin to close, he released her wrist and gathered her to him as he sat on the blood-soaked floor. He cradled her limp body against his chest, rocking gently and praying. Who would listen? No one, probably, not for his sake, but perhaps for hers. She was the Slayer, surely that meant something to the Powers.

“Buffy, please,” he begged, still rocking her in his arms despite the pain that still radiated from his shoulder. “I told you … told you to stake me. Told you this was a bad bloody idea, the worst idea you’ve had yet, I’d wager, and you’ve had some colossally bad ideas. Jumpin’ off a bloody tower built by numpties comes to mind.

“Please … please, Buffy,” he pleaded, dropping his face down next to hers, holding her against him, listening to her heart stutter, race, slow, and skip beats arrhythmically. “I’m so sorry, Buffy … please, please. I need you … Buffy, please don’t leave me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Buffy be okay? What will happen when Riley and the others find out that Spike fed from her? Will anyone be able to find and stop the Suvolte spawn ... assuming it laid its eggs before Buffy and Spike killed it, of course. wink 
> 
> We'll find out soon!
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you'll stop in and say hi! My muse loves hearing from you!
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful and talented Beta, PaganBaby! She so rocks! flowers 
> 
> Any mistakes are mine cos I can't stop fiddling!


	11. Drunk on Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley realizes Spike has fed from Buffy. Buffy's reaction to Spike's bite is ... odd.

* * *

 

Still rocking Buffy gently in his arms on the bathroom floor, Spike lifted his eyes toward the ceiling, tears beginning to spill down his cheeks. “Joyce, if yer there … please help ‘er. Please, help me,” he prayed, his voice cracking with emotion, tears dripping from his chin onto the unconscious Slayer in his arms. “Please, I’m beggin’ you, let her wake up,” he implored the unseen heavens.

Buffy’s heartbeat became steadier over the next few beats, her breathing more regular, as Spike kept beseeching any power, spirit, or saint that would listen to help her. After a few moments, her eyes fluttered and then opened, slowly focusing on him.

“I t-t-told you,” she murmured dazedly, her words slurring. “T-t-that you could s-s-stop in t-t-time. You’re n-not … A-angel.”

Spike nearly jumped out of his skin when she spoke, his eyes flying wide and his head jerking back down to stare at her. “Bloody hell! That what you call stoppin’ in time, is it?”

But his anger and shock was quickly replaced with relief, and he began raining kisses over her face, his tears actually coming harder, but now tears of relief. “Thank you, thank you,” he murmured against her skin, which was pale and cool beneath his lips, which had grown warm from her blood.

“Tickles…” she giggled, trying to escape the onslaught of kisses, pushing him back a bit. She caught sight of her bloody, wounded wrist and began waving it to and fro in front of her eyes. “Oh, look … baby fishes,” she observed dreamily.

Spike sniffed back his emotions, gathering his wits, and huffed out a breath as he watched her, taking in her dazed look, her dilated pupils, and her slurred speech. “Are you _stoned_?” he asked incredulously.

“Totally!” Buffy gushed with a giggle. “High as a kite!” Buffy furrowed her brows then. “Are we flying? That would make you Superman. Where’s your cape?”

“Thought you said you’d been bitten before … did it get ya high then?” Spike wondered, tightening his grip on her as he began to rise, his shoulder already feeling better.

“Noooo,” Buffy replied. “Kinda enthralled, in the hospital, and dead. High is soooo much better,” she assured him dreamily.

“Oh, bloody wonderful. Just how many times ‘ave you died, Slayer?”

Spike set her on her feet. She swayed drunkenly and nearly fell before he caught her. He decided sitting would be better and helped her to the toilet, setting her down and leaning her shoulder against the wall next to it for support.

Buffy furrowed her brows in thought, then held up one hand, counting off on her fingers. “One. Two.” She looked up at Spike, giving him a triumphant smile. “Two!” she pronounced, holding up her thumb and forefinger in an ‘L’ sign in front of her forehead, showing him.

Spike shook his head and began rinsing the washcloth out in the sink, removing the blood (and tears) from his face, arms, and torso – again. When he was done, he did the same with Buffy, getting as much blood as possible off her skin and clothes. He then used some bandages from Sam’s medical kit and wrapped up her wrist. It wasn’t bleeding, but still looked raw and a little gruesome. He didn’t want Dawn to see it.

“Well, you aren’t going demon huntin’ anytime soon, pet,” Spike declared. “I guess I’ll be going out with Larry and Moe, then. Brilliant plan, that. I bloody told ya, but would you listen to me? Bossy bint,” he grumbled.

Buffy shook her head. “I’m fine, see?” She stood up, swayed a bit, then reached down for the make-shift stake that lay on the floor, nearly toppling over onto her head in the process. Spike caught her again and lifted her up into his arms, carrying her like a child with one arm around her back and the other under her knees. His shoulder wasn’t back to 100% yet, but it was well on the way. The pain was easily bearable, and he could move it through a full range of motion.

“Yeah, right as rain, you are. No demon would stand a chance of escape. They’d all be rolling about on the ground in laughter, no doubt,” he chided.

Buffy frowned, her bottom lip sticking out like a shelf in a dour pout. She laid one hand on his chest, staring at the smooth, pearlescent expanse of flesh and her expression cleared. “Did I ever tell you, I really like your chest. It’s very …” Buffy patted her palm up and down jerkily against the bulge of his pectoral, searching for the word. “…firm,” she finished.

“You’re like a Ken doll,” she declared. “Only, you know, ana—anatom—ana-tom-ically correct,” she added, nodding with conviction.  “I like that part too,” she whispered confidentially, widening her eyes flirtatiously. 

Spike pursed his lips, controlling the laugh that burbled in his throat. “Glad ya like it, Barbie,” he replied, joggling her a bit in his arms as he reached for the doorknob.

“You should be a model … you’d make a great bathing suit model. You’d look ammazzzing in a Speedo … unlike some guys I’ve seen, let me tell you! _Blech_! Gotta wonder what they were thinking! Unless they wanted you to work in the sun. That would make you allll dusty,” she rambled. “Don’t do that, K?” she entreated, looking up to meet his eyes, her expression worried.

Spike nodded. “Try m’ best to stay clear of it, luv,” he assured her before opening the bathroom door.

“You’re also very …” Buffy furrowed her brow, concentrating hard as she slowly and deliberately touched her forefinger to the tip of Spike’s nose. “…cute.”

Spike stopped at the top of the stairs and narrowed his eyes at her. “Take that back. Am not cute. Cute is fer puppies an’ wee lads, not vampires,” he asserted.

Buffy smiled at him, and tapped her finger on the tip of his nose three times as she chanted, “Cute. Cute. Cute.”

“Break your bloody finger if ya do that again, Slayer,” Spike growled at her.

“Even cuter when you’re mad,” she giggled, tapping her finger on his nose one more time, but subsided, collapsing into squirming yelps when he jabbed a finger into her ribs where he held her.

“Gonna let off on the ‘cute’?”

“K!!” she gasped, half-laughing, half-strangled-scream as he tickled her ribs.

He stopped tickling her, and Buffy subsided into a limp bundle in his arms, her cheek resting against his very firm, and oddly warm, chest. “Still cute though,” she mumbled under her breath as he started down the stairs.

In the living room, Riley was sitting on the couch, his back resting against one arm, his legs straight out so his feet nearly touched the other end. His right arm was bent at the elbow and bound tightly against his chest, immobilized. In addition, his right leg had a large brace on it that seemed to be reinforced with some sort of carbon alloy, which kept his knee from bending – apparently, Sam had a lot of medical equipment in her Humvee. He had a deep bruise on the side of his neck that looked suspiciously like Buffy’s boot print, and three fingers of his right hand were splinted and taped together.

“What did you do to her!?” Finn demanded angrily, seeing the limp form in Spike’s arms. He started to slide his legs down off the couch, getting his left down easily, but struggling with the injured right. He grabbed at a crutch leaned up near him, apparently intending to rise and confront Spike.

Dawn, who had appointed herself Riley’s guard, kicked him in the left shin, hard. “He didn’t do anything to her,” she assured Riley vehemently.  “He _loves_ her.”

Riley snorted derisively, but subsided back onto the couch, reaching down to rub his bruised shin, as he continued to glower at Spike.

“Dawnie! You’re so … sparkly,” Buffy declared, roused by the noise. She reached out toward her sister as Spike passed Dawn, heading for the recliner with his burden. “And tall! How did you get so _tall_?”

Dawn followed them and asked Spike in a low voice, “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s bloody drunk.”

“Drunk? On what? Mouthwash?” Dawn questioned, eying her sister suspiciously.

“Love,” Spike retorted dryly.

“Were you guys … _doing it_ in the bathroom?” Dawn asked, keeping her voice low as she scrunched her nose up in derision. “I have to use that bathroom, ya know!”

“What we were doin’ is above your pay grade,” Spike informed her shortly.

“I don’t have a pay grade,” Dawn pointed out.

“Exactly.”

“They weren’t having sex. Too quiet,” Riley piped up from his seat, wincing as he settled his shoulder back against the arm of the couch. “Trust me, you would know it if Buffy was having sex right above you. She’s—”

“LA, LA, LA, LA!” Dawn began chanting, putting her fingers in her ears. “That’s definitely above my pay grade!”

Riley rolled his eyes and stopped talking a moment. When Dawn took her fingers out of her ears he asserted, “He bit her, fed on her. Look how flushed he is – look at the wound on his back, it’s healed! Look at her wrist! I tried to warn you all about him! But would you listen to me? Nooo…”

At that Dawn turned, noticing the bandage on Buffy’s wrist for the first time, but instead of confronting Spike, she whirled back on Riley, her ire rising. “You dumbass! He can’t bite anyone, thanks to you! Or have you forgotten? He can’t even save me from getting shot without the chip firing! And he’s a _vampire_! He heals fast! How stupid can you be!?”

Dawn stepped back over to the soldier and punched him in the stomach. “Jerk.”

“Oww! When did you get so scary?” the soldier inquired, grimacing.

“When people I thought were my friends, who I cared for and I thought cared for me, left without a word in the middle of the night!” Dawn retorted with a meaningful glare at him.

“Oh…” Riley muttered, lowering his gaze, chastised. “I meant to apologize for that.”

Dawn ‘hmphed’ and turned back to her sister. Kneeling down in front of the chair where Buffy sat, Dawn touched a hand to the bandage. “What happened to your wrist, Buffy?” she asked soothingly.

Buffy’s eyes shifted to Dawn and she blinked a few times trying to focus, first on Dawn, then on the bandage on her wrist. The intoxicated Slayer lifted her hand up and began fluttering her fingers while slowly waving her whole hand back and forth in front of her eyes. “Fishes … effulgent baby fishes,” she murmured dreamily, watching her hand as it moved slowly to and fro. “So pretty!”

Dawn looked up at Spike who had suddenly gone very still, his brows drawn in a deep frown. “There are demon fish in the bathroom now? Effulgent Fish – is that a thing? Like demon piranhas or something?”

“Don’ be daft,” he scolded absently. “Somethin’ that’s effulgent radiates warmth and goodness, it shines brightly,” he informed her seriously, still staring unblinkingly at Buffy, gobsmacked. “She’s drunk, seeing things. There aren’t any bloody fishes.”

“Huh… weird,” Dawn replied, shrugging and standing back up.

“Yeah,” he agreed, his voice seeming to come from far away.

“So, what happened to her?” Dawn asked, looking at Spike.

Spike shook himself out of his spinning thoughts, his eyes coming back into focus. “Nothin’ permanent,” he assured her, avoiding actually answering the question. “She’ll be fine in a bit, I’d wager.

“Need ya to keep an eye on ‘er while I go look for these … tribbles, yeah? She could probably use something to drink—" he began but was cut off by Buffy suggesting, “Beer!” in a joyful tone, dropping her waving hand back to her lap.

“NO!” both Spike and Dawn said at once.

“Juice or water … maybe milk?” Spike finished, looking at Dawn for confirmation, which she gave with a nod, before he turned and headed for the door.

“You aren’t going alone, Spike,” Riley asserted, struggling again to try and stand up. “I don’t trust you.”

“That’s bloody rich! Not going with you, Rambo. Done being shot in the back, I am.” Turning to Dawn he instructed, “Make ‘im sit down and stay, like a good puppy.”

Dawn turned, took the couple of steps back to Riley, and punched him in the shoulder. The soldier screamed and dropped back down onto the couch, clutching his dislocated shoulder in agony.

“Serves you right for shooting Spike,” she proclaimed, standing firmly in front of him with her arms crossed, daring him to try and stand up again.

“I’m going with him,” Sam announced as she came back in the still-open front door. “We’ve got a new lead, it just came over the wire. Apparently, it had already spawned before you killed it.  The eggs are being trafficked on the black market. We need to be looking for someone going by the name of ‘The Doctor’,” she informed the room at large.

“Who would want demon tribble eggs?” Dawn wondered, wrinkling her nose.

“I’m hungry!” Buffy decreed. “Tribble egg omelets, all around!”

Dawn gave her sister an impatient glare, but Buffy didn’t notice, settling back in her chair and staring up at the ceiling, apparently seeing something absorbing there. Stars, perhaps?

Riley answered her. “Plenty of militant governments would pay big money for them. An army of Suvolte demons dropped in urban areas could wipe out the entire population of an enemy country.”

“Aaaand, then what?” Dawn questioned, looking at him, her brows drawn down in disdain. “Now you have all these killer tribbles running around making more and more baby tribbles, expanding exponentially, which would then just take over the whole world, including the people who let them go in the first place. I’m just a pretentious teen and even I know that’s ridiculous.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “The bit’s right. Where do you lot come up with these daft ideas? You and the Flat Earth Society should get together, ya both make about as much sense.

“Shamans and witches use ‘em in spells and such, black magic … _very_ black,” he corrected Riley. “No good to ‘em if they’ve hatched, need the eggs, not the tribbles. To be of any value, the eggs have to be kept frozen, yeah?”

Spike turned to Dawn, one brow raised, and whispered, “ _Expanding exponentially_?”

Dawn shrugged. “Biology II, third period,” she explained, sotto voce, grinning.

“Impressive,” he acknowledged, still low voiced. “Teacher must be a right dandy sprat.”

“So hot,” Dawn cooed, rolling her eyes heavenward and sighing dreamily.

“You s-should listen to Spike,” Buffy announced a bit too loudly in the small room, her words still slurring slightly. “He’s very, very, veerrry old, like … Yoda old,” she informed them solemnly. “He knows things,” she told them confidentially.

“Ta, ever so, but not that bloody old,” Spike protested.

“I need M&Ms! Dawn, do we have M&Ms?” Buffy suddenly proclaimed.

“Uhhh … yeah, I think so,” her sister replied, looking from Buffy to Spike, who just shrugged.

“Green M&Ms! I need green ones!” Buffy declared decisively.

“Can we go, Yoda?” Sam piped up, motioning toward the door.

Spike turned and eyed her grimly. “You gonna shoot me, too?”

Her mouth twisted into a lopsided smile, her dark eyes glittering. “Not unless you try to bite me,” she assured him. “Then, I’d probably save the ammo and just chop your head off.”

Spike snorted. “Good t’ know, but can’t bite ya, can I? Didn’t lover-boy tell ya about all his little lab-rats?”

Sam looked at Riley, who shook his head and rolled his eyes, and then back at Spike. “He told me a bit, _Hostile 17_ , maybe you could fill in some blanks.”

Spike aimed a Cheshire cat grin at Riley and started for the door. “Be my pleasure,” he assured her, waving her to proceed him out the door as Riley glared daggers at him.

“Sam! Be careful. Don’t turn your back on him! Chip or not, don’t trust him,” Riley called after his wife.

“Roger that,” she called back casually, heading down the steps.

“Hey! Spike wouldn’t hurt anyone!” Dawn objected, glaring daggers at Finn. “And you’ve got a lot of glass in your house to be throwing stones!”

Spike smirked at her defense of his character. He paused in the doorway and looked back at the three who remained, a thought just occurring to him. “Where’s Clement?”

“He had that poker game, he said he needed to go,” Dawn explained.

Spike nodded, remembering. “You gonna be okay with this lot?” Spike asked Dawn seriously, waving a hand between Riley and Buffy.

She bobbed her head confidently. “I can handle it. Anyway, Willow will be home soon.”

Spike nodded, his gaze shifting between Buffy and Riley uneasily. “If ‘e tries anything, stab him, preferably in the back.”

Dawn frowned. “I don’t have a knife,” she pointed out, joking.

Spike strode back over to Riley, who tensed, curling his one good hand into a fist, ready to defend himself, but Spike was moving too fast, revved up on Slayer blood and now feeling no pain. The vamp drew a knife out of its sheath on the soldier’s belt before Riley even knew what he was about, and thunked it down on the coffee table. “Now you do.”

Dawn flinched a little, but picked the knife up, mostly to keep it out of Riley’s grasp. If the look on his face was any indication, he would’ve buried it in Spike’s skull given half a chance. “Okeydokey, then,” she consented tentatively, holding the knife behind her back, out of sight.

“And do not give ‘er …” Spike jabbed a finger at Buffy in case it wasn’t clear who he meant, “…any green M&Ms. Not a single bloody one,” he instructed Dawn sternly. “Got it?”

“Got it,” Dawn assured him with a firm nod. “No horny-inducing food for Buffy until you get back.”

Spike narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t even want t’ know how you know that word,” he muttered, shaking his head before turning for the door to follow Sam.

Dawn grinned widely. “I am the product of our over-taxed and under-funded public-school system,” she called after him, haughtily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Riley knows, but Dawn doesn't believe him, and he's in no condition to argue or do much about it. And what's up with Buffy getting stoned from the bite and seeing effulgent fishes? What will happen with Spike and Sam out looking for the Suvolte eggs together? We'll find out the answer to that last one soon!
> 
> Also, if it's not clear, I thought the whole thing with Spike and the demon eggs in 'As You Were' was ridiculous. Things will be different this time around.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you'll stop in and let me know what you think! Much more to come!
> 
> Thanks also to my lovely and talented beta reader, PaganBaby, who loves drunk Buffy as much as I do ... FIRE PRETTY! 
> 
> Any mistakes are mine because I can't stop fiddling.


	12. Dollar Tour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Sam have a conversation.

* * *

 

Spike climbed up into Sam’s black Humvee, which was parked at the curb behind Finn’s, and settled back into the passenger seat.

“Comfy,” he acknowledged, sinking into the soft leather. “Does it get its own postal code?” he wondered, looking around the spacious interior, which seemed approximately equivalent to a football field.

Sam laughed and turned the ignition, starting the monster up with a rumble. “Seat belt,” she instructed Spike, giving a meaningful glance at the belt hanging unused by his door.

Spike snorted. “Vampires don’t wear seatbelts,” he informed her.

“They do if they want to ride in my High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle,” she responded with a genial smile, waiting.

“Oh, bloody hell,” he moaned, grabbing the buckle and pulling it across his bare chest. “None o’ my friends better see me. Be drummed out of the Vampire o’ the Year competition, I would.”

“You’re a funny guy,” Sam observed, pulling away from the curb. “I never knew vampires had senses of humor.”

“Got all kinds o’ senses you’d never expect, I reckon,” Spike retorted, pointing for her to turn at the next street. “Gotta go by my crypt an’ get a shirt, since your honey bear ruined mine with his shiny bullet.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” Sam offered affably.

Spike snorted. “No, reckon he’d rather it went through my bloody skull. Right mess that woulda been.”

“So, you were gonna get even with him, weren’t you? What’s all the inside dirt you wanted to dish out on Finn?” Sam wondered as she drove.

Spike grunted and settled back into storytelling mode. “Did he tell ya he couldn’t tie ‘is own shoe laces when he was first with the Slayer? Buffy had to get him laced up for demon huntin’ every night like she was his mum. I suggested she get him boots with Velcro – reckoned he could suss that out – but she didn’t want to have the piss taken out of him by the other numpties.

“Does he still wear the Depends? Ya know, those poofter-sized diapers for big babies? From what I heard, after he had that scare with that Kantuchi demon and shat his pants, he started wearing ‘em all the time, even on dates with the Slayer. You could tell when he’d shit a load, apart from the stench, hung down like he had a bleedin’ cantaloupe in his knickers.

“And did ya know he had a big thing fer his boss … Walsh, was it? Been told by reliable sources that he hankered for her for ages ‘fore she finally gave him a taste. Right there in the holding cells, it was. Scarred my delicate eyeballs fer life, I tell ya,” Spike lamented, grimacing. “Obviously, a deep-seated, unresolved oedipal complex, if ya ask me.

“Then there was the vampapalooza just before he scampered off like a ponce. Let the blood whores at him, he did. Gave ‘em all chlamydia, or so I hear. Hope you’ve been tested, luv.”

“Spike,” Sam interrupted him, rolling her eyes. “I might’ve been born at night, but it wasn’t _last_ night.”

“Sayin’ ya don’t believe me, then?”

“Uhhh. Yeah, not so much. You seem more Han Solo than Yoda to me: you spew a lot of BS.”

“Oi! I prefer _poetic license_ ,” he informed her, looking insulted. Then Spike shrugged nonchalantly and pointed at the next turn. “Worth a shot, yeah? Can see yer brighter than Captain Cardboard. Mind you, that’s not somethin’ to write home about, pet,” he cautioned.

Sam’s eyes rolled again, but she smiled reluctantly. “I guess that’s why I’m still functional and Riley’s wrapped up like a Christmas Cracker, care of the Slayer.”

Spike pursed his lips, enjoying the memory of Buffy giving the git a long-overdue beatdown.  “Bloody brilliant, that was,” he remarked shamelessly. “The Slayer was brutal. Gets me all tingly just thinkin’ about it,” he confided, running one hand down from his bare chest, over his six-pack abs and finally settling it with the other on the bulge in his jeans.

Sam cleared her throat uncomfortably, pulling her eyes back to the road and away from her chisel-chested passenger.

“So, the Slayer,” Sam picked up the lost thread of conversation, maneuvering the large vehicle expertly through the narrow streets. “You and her? How’d that happen?”

Spike huffed out a breath. “Tried to kill each other a few hundred times, figured out we couldn’t, decided if ya can’t beat ‘em, shag ‘em,” he summarized, leaving out only a few minor details.

One of Sam’s brows quirked up. “I think you left off the part about getting chipped and being the only Hostile to ever escape the Initiative.”

“Reader’s Digest version,” he explained. “Soldiers have a limited grasp of the Queen’s English and, without pictures to look at, they’ll lose the plot by the second act, usually just start shootin’ by the fourth. Just didn’t want to get shot. _Again_.”

Sam rolled her eyes, but ignored the jab. “And how many soldiers have you known to base this astute observation on?”

“Too bloody many,” Spike muttered, looking out the side window.

“You really annoy and infuriate Finn,” Sam disclosed, changing the subject slightly, and giving the vampire a sidelong glance.

“The feeling’s mutual,” Spike replied, his mouth set in a hard line.

“So … did you feed from Buffy?” Sam wondered, keeping her voice casual.

“Pffft!” Spike snorted. “Heard the bit. Got a chip, don’t I?” he replied without actually answering.

Sam huffed out a soft sound of acknowledgement. “I’ve never seen anyone, or anything, get under Finn’s skin and rattle him like you just did,” she continued.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Spike retorted, sniffing smugly and sitting up straighter in his seat. “Afraid I’m spoken for, luv. I could put the word out, if ya like, though. Plenty of eligible vampires about, I reckon. Be a lot livelier than Captain Cardboard, I’d wager.”

The soldier allowed amusement to steal over her features, curving her lips up and sparkling in her dark eyes.

“I can see how your sense of humor might not be fully appreciated by Finn,” Sam allowed. “But, I wonder if his obsession with you is because you’re the one who got away,” she mused thoughtfully.

“Yeah, well, I’m still taken, pet. He can just keep hankering away fer my hot, tight little body all he wants; he’ll never have a taste of it. Belongs to the Slayer till the end of time,” Spike informed her with deadpan seriousness. 

Sam’s mouth quirked into a full smile and she even let a small laugh burble out from her throat.

Spike looked at her then, really looked. Her face transformed when she smiled, her dark-chocolate eyes danced, her lips curved deliciously, and her cheeks flushed slightly. Not like most of the soldiers he’d known –okay, not like ANY of them.

“You’re a piece o’ work. I like you,” he announced unexpectedly. The words were out of his mouth before he’d really thought about it.

“I’m sure Finn will be thrilled to know that,” Sam joked, still smiling.

Spike’s stomach did a backflip as it dawned on him that he really did like the girl. And so did Riley Finn, apparently. The numptie had married her, after all. Spike scowled, becoming increasingly discomfited by the idea that he and White Bread could possibly have the same taste in women. How bloody twisted is that? Spike had to shake that thought off before he ruined the nice leather interior of Sam’s ride by puking Slayer blood all over it. Not to mention what a tragic waste of Slayer blood it would be.

Spike eyed her a moment longer as she drove, finally asking, “How does a girl, who obviously appreciates the finer points of snark and sarcasm, end up with a plonker like Finn?”

Sam shrugged. “He’s steady, solid, ya know?”

Spike’s brows went up. “So are rocks, an’ they’re a lot more fun, I’d wager.”

Sam kept smiling, but shook her head. “Riley’s dedicated to the mission, he wants to make a difference, he wants to help people – more than that, he _needs_ to help people. And so do I,” she explained.

“Hate to break it to ya, but that don’t sound like love to me. And I have plenty of experience with that, pet. Sounds like ya married him so you could carpool to work … and you still have separate cars,” he pointed out with a glance around her Humvee.

“Carpooling would make more sense than you actually fallin’ for the gormless twat,” he added acerbically.

“You don’t understand. He’s what I need. I can depend on him. He’s always there for me,” Sam argued, getting a little defensive.

Spike snorted and turned to look out the window. “Yeah, until he isn’t,” he muttered, remembering Finn’s abrupt departure from the Summers’ lives. The blighter ran off just when Buffy was facing the biggest-bad yet, not to mention her mother’s mortality.  He hated Finn for being in her life in the first place, but he hated him even more for leaving as he did. Bloody coward.

“Careful who you put yer trust in, pet. Hate to see ya damaged,” Spike advised thoughtfully, still looking out the side window. “And I wasn’t lying about the vamp whores … let them feed off him, got off on it, he did. Not the crispiest cracker in the tin, your pet rock.”

Sam’s shoulders tensed, and her smile faded, she couldn’t keep the scorn out of her voice when she replied, “What do vampires know about love, anyway?”

Spike’s head snapped around, his blue eyes suddenly ablaze with fervor. “We love. Deeply, profoundly. Been around a good long time, I have. I’ve seen love, danced in love, been drowned by love, destroyed by it, burnt to embers and resurrected by it, and made better for it.

“Have you ever bore a love so deep it feels like you’ll be torn in two if ya can’t just touch them just one more time, see their eyes spark with fury, watch them move with deadly grace, hear their laugh echo through the night? I have. _I do_.

“Love isn't brains, it's blood. Blood screaming inside you to work its will. Love isn’t safe. It isn’t dependable. It’s jumping off the edge of the world and hopin’, _praying_ , that she’ll be there to catch you before you crash against the jagged rocks and splinter into a million shards of heartbreak.

“There’s no sticking your toe in the water t’ see if it’s warm enough, it’s diving in, head first. It’s walking a high wire with no net. It’s rocketing to the moon without enough fuel t’ get back.

“There’s a reason they call it ‘falling in love’, not ‘parachuting into dependability’, pet. Think about it,” Spike finished his impassioned speech, his blue eyes still blazing intensely.

“Hoping _she’ll_ be there to catch you?” Sam ask tentatively. “You mean Buffy.” It wasn’t really a question, but Spike answered anyway.

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m love’s bitch, and she’s the one. The only one. Till the end of time.”

“And has she … caught you?” Sam wondered, flashing him a keen, oblique glance before looking back at the road.

Spike swallowed hard and turned his gaze back out the side window, not answering right away. He felt the warmth and power of Slayer blood surging through him, the taste of it seared into his tongue as if it had been liquid fire. He could still see the flickering flame of light that she’d kindled deep inside him, pushing back the darkness.  Buffy’s laugh still rang in his ears, melodious and playful, from the shadows beneath him the night before as she asked him on a date. His skin still tingled where she’d gently laid her hand on his arm when she’d realized that he knew the darkness she was caught in all too well.

She hadn’t caught him. Not fully. Not yet. But she’d reached out and was keeping him from crashing against the rocks by the tips of her fingers, just barely linked with his. But she’d reached out. And she was holding on.

So was he.

“She hasn’t let me crash … this time,” Spike answered finally, still not looking at the brunette.

“But she did before … Finn told me when you were upstairs, she sort of … _left_ …” Sam’s voice trailed off as she looked at her passenger, who did, indeed, look suddenly broken.

“Died,” Spike corrected harshly, the guilt and heartbreak washing back over him as if it had just happened as he stared blindly at the passing houses outside his window. “I couldn’t save her … wasn’t fast enough … strong enough … good enough,” he admitted forlornly.

The vampire sniffed and pulled himself together, turning his gaze back on the driver. “Slayer, yeah? The Chosen One. Hard to catch someone when yer sacrificing yourself t’ save the bloody world,” he pointed out.

“Listen, pet. If Finn doesn’t feel like his world will end if he loses you; if he doesn’t give you every drop o’ his blood, sweat and tears, if he doesn’t worship you down into the very marrow of his bones, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

Sam gave him an uncertain look, taking in his intensity, and the eloquent words, not really sure how to reply to all of his impassioned advice. She gave a small, uncertain nod, completely taken aback, and didn’t comment further on the subject.

They continued the rest of the way in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but contemplative as they traversed the suburban roads, the only sound being the hum of the tires on the pavement and the rumble of the big motor.

“Just pull in there,” Spike broke the silence at last, waving at the cemetery gate. “Mine’s third crypt on the left.”

Near Spike’s crypt, Sam stopped the Humvee, killed the engine, and climbed out, following Spike.

“What’re ya doing? Just be a minute,” he questioned as he strode purposely toward his crypt.

“Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?” she offered, smiling. “Who would give me advice on love?”

Spike made a guttural noise in his throat, doubting that was the reason for her close company.

“Not gonna bolt on ya, and if I was, not much you could do to stop me,” Spike informed her as he reached the door to his crypt.

Sam shrugged. “You’d be surprised what I can do.”

Spike snorted, looking her up and down. “I ‘aven’t stayed alive this long by underestimating people – or demons,” he advised her.

“Me either,” Sam replied genially, still smiling wryly.

Spike shrugged and opened the door of the crypt with a screech of rusty hinges.

“You know, I have some oil in the truck that could fix that,” Sam offered, eying the offending metal.

“Alarm system,” Spike informed her. “Took me three months to get ‘em to screech that well.”

Sam opened her mouth in an ‘O’, but didn’t say anything further as she followed him into the crypt. He lit a couple of candles so she could see, then lifted the trap door and started down the ladder.

“What’s down there?” she wondered, peering down after him.

“My boudoir,” he retorted. “Did ya want the bloody dollar tour?”

“Is that where your coffin is?” she wondered, still looking down into the darkness, but Spike didn’t light a candle down there, so she couldn’t really see anything beyond the pale blond of his head moving around.

“My what?” he wondered as he retrieved a clean t-shirt from a drawer and grabbed his duster from a peg on the wall, shrugging into both quickly.

Sam backed up as he emerged from the darkness, fully dressed and feeling much more himself.

“Your coffin … don’t vampires sleep in coffins?” she asked with complete solemnity.

Spike snorted out a laugh and dropped the trap door back into place. “What do you lot use for training videos? Old Bela Lugosi movies? Get yer intel from Anne Rice books?”

Sam stiffened, and a slight blush rose to her cheeks as she followed him back to the crypt door. “No, of course not. We have a lot of research from the Initiative about behaviors, strengths, and weakness for many classes of demons, including vampires. I just never thought to ask a vampire where they slept … or if they loved.”

“Stake first, ask questions later … oh, my mistake. Stake first. End of questions,” Spike surmised, raising his brows in question.

Sam shrugged. “Well, usually they’re attacking people, or getting ready to attack people, not riding around in my truck delivering impassioned dissertations about love,” she pointed out. “Where _do_ you sleep then?”

“California King, pillow-top Beauty Rest with silk sheets, a down comforter, and loads o’ pillows,” he replied with a shrug. “Where do you sleep?”

Sam’s gaze flicked to the Humvee as they emerged from the crypt.

Spike snorted. “Sleepin’ in a cramped little box, eh? Sounds comfy, Drac.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Sam's mission will continue with a trip to Willy's for intel gathering next. What did you think of Sam? What about Spike's advice to her? Do you think she heard what he was saying? Or did Spike spew too much BS to start with for her to take him seriously? Was Spike hiding something in the the downstairs of the crypt, or was him not lighting a candle down there purely innocent? 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you'll stop in and let me know what you think! It really makes my day to hear from everyone! Will have more soon.
> 
> Extra special thanks to Paganbaby for being my sounding board and brilliant beta!


	13. Déjà vu All Over Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Sam head to Willy’s bar to gather intel. What will the soldier make of the blatant display of demon-hood?

 

After picking up that litter of kittens he’d been saving back for a rainy day, and stowing them in one of Sam’s duffel bags for transport, Spike had Sam take him to Willy’s, a demon bar in the seedier part of town. If anyone knew where the demon eggs might be, it would be someone here, most likely someone in the backroom poker game – the game where Clem had been headed.

Spike tried to get Sam to wait in the truck, but with no luck. “Just keep quiet then, yeah? And try not to shoot, stab, or stake anything,” he instructed her as he sauntered in ahead of her, the bag of meowing fur-balls slung over his shoulder. Several demons around the room recognized him and called out or lifted a glass in greeting as he entered, which he returned casually as he headed for the bar.

Sam took in the mish-mash of demon-kind present in the bar with surprise and more than a little apprehension.

“Buffy knows about this place?” she asked, keeping her voice low as she tried to watch all the demons at once, expecting an attack at any moment, her hand resting on her gun, ready to draw.

“’Course,” Spike answered, fist-bumping a very large hairy creature who could’ve been Cousin It’s father, or possibly cross between a wooly mammoth and a wookiee, sitting at the bar.

“How’s it hangin’, Joe?” he asked the hairy demon cordially.

“Straight and honey brown this week,” Joe replied in a rumbling mountain of a voice that matched his size.

“I like it. Didn’t really think last week’s burgundy red curls suited ya, too brash,” Spike observed. He reached out and took a long lock of the demon’s mane between a thumb and forefinger, sliding them down the long length of hair. “Very nice,” Spike approved, admiring the soft, shiny, brunette locks between his fingers. “You’ll have to get me what yer using for conditioner these days … fer my girl.”

Joe seemed to nod, his ruffling hair being the only indication. “Soon as they’re done testing it I’ll have some delivered to your crypt.”

“Brilliant. Just let me know what I owe ya,” Spike agreed, releasing Joe’s long hair.

Joe waved him off with a furry paw the size of a dinner plate. “It’s on me, Spike. You know I still owe you for that Bonaduce’t demon. I know it wasn’t easy getting it out from under the house.”

“No worries, always glad t’ help, mate.”

“How’s your supply of hair gel?” Joe asked, one coal-black eye gleaming out from between the thick, long hair to check Spike’s coif. “The super-hold looks like it’s working well for you.”

“Yeah, it’s brilliant,” Spike agreed, touching a hand to his hair. “Maybe need more middle o’ next month, yeah?”

“You got it,” Joe assured him.

Spike gave him a grateful nod and turned to the bored-looking, middle-aged, balding, human bartender who had appeared in front of them behind the bar.

Spike glanced at Sam. “What’s yer pleasure?”

Sam blinked. “I’m not drinking in a demon bar and sacrificing my reflexes and judgement,” she informed him sternly.

Spike quirked a brow at her but shrugged, turning back to the bartender. “Irish Coffee. I’ll have the Irish and give ‘er the coffee,” he instructed, jabbing a thumb towards Sam. “Light and sweet, I’m guessin’?”

Sam nodded, a little flustered about how he could divine her preference in coffee, but shook it off in favor of addressing more pressing matters.

“Buffy knows about this and she just lets it go on?” the soldier asked in a low voice, her eyes still trying to watch everything at once as they waited for the drinks.

Spike turned to face her, annoyed, one elbow leaning casually against the bar. “Look, Bat Girl, these demons are harmless. They live their lives, they ‘ave jobs, blow off a little steam here before heading home to their families. They don’t hurt anyone, they’re contributing members of society. The Slayer knows they’re here, she uses some for intel, she has some over for bloody movie nights. Despite what yer dearly beloved may say, the world is not black and white. Buffy’s learned to live in the grey, somethin’ most Slayers never live long enough to even realize exists. You’d do well to learn from that.”

Sam scowled at him. “What does Joe do for a living? Or is he your personal hair-care specialist?” she asked in a derogatory tone, as if Joe couldn’t possibly have any sort of real job.

“He’s a hair product tester, works fer several large hair product manufacturing companies. Makes in the six figures, he does,” Spike informed her dryly.

“Spike, oh, Spiiike,” a small, sweet, bell-like voice sing-songed from behind them, interrupting before Sam could reply. Spike turned to face a petite, feminine demon with blue-green skin. She was wearing an effervescent dress of light pink that appeared to be made of translucent fish scales. She stood just barely above his bellybutton, and seemed to be breathing soapsuds, with hair made of shimmering bubbles.

“Ariel, my little laundress. You’re looking lovely this evening. New washing-up liquid?”

The little demon ran a hand through the glistening rainbow of bubbles on her head and several floated off, popping softly in the air above her.

“You’re so sweet to notice, Spike,” she said shyly, her rippling, aquamarine eyes dropping coquettishly.

“You’ve been a very bad boy,” she chastised him, looking back up with those mesmerizing eyes. “I had a dreadful time getting that green demon slime out of your jeans, it was soaked through and ground in. You really should be more careful what you slay, Spike, or at least jump back faster … maybe an apron would help.”

“Good advice, that. Jus’ let me know what I owe ya for the extra trouble, luv,” he offered, reaching into his pocket and pulling out some bills.

The little, bubbly demon waved a dismissive hand. “It’s okay, just the usual, but do be careful, won’t you?”

Spike agreed, apologizing, and handed her a few bills which she tucked into a glistening bag on her shoulder which looked like it was made of … water? “I’ll drop it all off tomorrow, will I?”

Spike nodded. “Perfect, luv. Just leave ‘em on the chair if I’m not there.”

The little demon curtsied to him formally, a few more bubbles rising up from her head and floating away with the motion, and then turned away to join her friends at a table on the other side of the bar.

“The little mermaid does your laundry?” Sam questioned, watching the little thing move, almost floating, across the room.

“Her name’s Roberta … just looks like a landlocked mermaid, dontcha think?”

Sam made a non-committal noise in her throat as their drinks were set down on the bar.

“Now,” he said, picking up the tumbler of Irish Whiskey and dropping more bills on the bar. “Keep your gun holstered, yer gob shut, and let me do the talking,” he ordered, picking up the bag of kittens before sauntering toward the closed door at the back of the bar where the real dealings of Willy’s went on. Sam followed in his wake, her coffee in one hand, but her other hand hovering near her gun, still uncertain.

* * *

 

“Spike!” came a chorus of voices from the poker table as he entered the backroom of Willy’s.

“Boys, deal me in,” he replied cordially, before turning a cold glare on Sam, pointing a finger at her and ordering her to, “Stay.”

“You’re gonna play cards? Now!?” she hissed back in a low tone, keeping her eyes on the demons at the table and her back against the closed door.  “If they have information, why don’t we just beat it out of them?  Just tell me which one I can hurt or kill, and let’s get this done,” she insisted, reaching for her gun. “We’re wasting time!”

Spike sighed and rolled his eyes. “Bloody déjà vu all over again,” he muttered to himself, wondering if the brunette had missed her calling as a Slayer. She sounded just like Buffy when he’d brought her here to try and gather intel a few weeks ago. “And I thought females were supposed t’ be the gentler sex,” he groaned under his breath.

Spike stepped back close to the brunette and addressed her in a stern tone. “Trust me, this is how it’s done. I’ll get more info out of live demons than dead ones, right? I’ll have the info we need shortly, just stand there, don’t move, don’t talk, try not t’ breathe too loudly, yeah?”

“I don’t like it,” she argued.

“Not askin’ ya to like it. Just do it,” he insisted firmly, his blue eyes blazing, brooking no argument.

Sam glared at him, but dropped her hand from her gun and replied with a short, crisp, “Fine.”

“Fine,” Spike parroted back, just as crisply, before turning and taking a seat next to Clem at the table.

“Does Buffy know you’re out with another girl?” Clem asked, eying Sam critically.

“Ante up,” called the dealer, a many-eyed thing with green skin and orange tentacles that looked like dreadlocks curling around his shoulders and down his back.

Spike reached down in the bag he’d been carrying and retrieved one of the kittens, putting it in a basket in the center of the table before answering Clem. “Yeah, she knows.”

Clem’s pink eyes went wide. “Maybe I need to try dating some of those tight-skinned girls. I guess the ugly ones don’t mind so much if you fool around on ‘em, huh?”

Spike pursed his lips and picked his cards up. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far, mate,” he advised Clem. “Depends on the girl, I reckon.”

Clem nodded knowingly, picking up his own cards in his large, flabby fingers. “I just don’t know how you stand to look at them naked, Spike, let alone _touch_ them. They’re just so … _smooth and tight_. Is it the same all over?”

Spike tossed two cards back and received two more from the dealer. “Yeah, pretty much,” he conceded. “Very tight … _everywhere_ ,” he admitted, a wicked grin curving his lips at the thought.

Clem made a disgusted sound, the wrinkles covering his face growing deeper as he scrunched it up in abhorrence. “Don’t know how you manage it, Spike,” he offered in a pitying tone, shaking his head. “All that shiny hair, and those teeth! They’re so straight … and white! Ugh! I mean, I guess if you made them keep most of their clothes on and covered up their faces while you _did it_. Still, I don’t know. They just don’t have enough skin on their bones.” Clem screwed up his mouth in a grimace and shook his head.

“Well, someone’s got to do it, I reckon. Ugly girls need a good shag now an’ then, too,” Spike pointed out, pulling three more kittens from his bag and upping the bet.

“Well, better you than me,” Clem declared, matching Spike’s bet.

Spike pulled the last two kittens out of his bag to up the bet one last time.

One of the other demons folded, but Clem and the other two at the table called his bet.

“Read ‘em and weep, boys,” Spike gloated, laying down a Royal Flush.

All the other demons at the table moaned, cursed, and complained in various languages, tossing their cards down crossly.

“Good thing you’re lucky at something, Spike,” Clem congratulated him as Spike gathered up all the kittens, putting them in his bag. “Heaven knows you deserve a reward for dating all those hideously grotesque women.”

Spike stood up, clapping his hands together and rubbing them briskly. “Right then, nice doin’ business with you blokes, but I need t’ be off,” he began, but was interrupted by protests from his comrades.

“Oh, you want a chance t’ win yer tabbies back, that it?” he asked, unnecessarily. “Well, here’s the thing, looking for some demon eggs, supposed to be a hot commodity around here the last couple of days. Anyone who knows something about their location can ‘ave all their little mousers back.”

Spike stood waiting expectantly, looking from one to the other. The other demons all shifted in their seats uneasily, looking everywhere but at him. “The Slayer’ll owe ya one,” he added, upping the ante. “Just need a location.”

Finally, a purple demon with what looked like a terrible acne condition and red, googly eyes that pointed in different directions cleared his throat. “I hear someone calling himself ‘The Doctor’ bought them from a dealer on the west side of town.”

“Not what I asked, but thank you for playing,” Spike dismissed him. “Anyone else? Current location is what we’re going for ‘ere.”

The green demon with the dreadlocks finally spoke up. “My kittens back, plus four more for the location,” he offered.

“One more,” Spike countered.

“Two,” the demon bartered.

“Done,” Spike accepted.

“Being kept in the underbelly of a human dwelling,” the demon revealed.

“Which one, got a few hundred o’ those around these parts,” Spike urged.

“Go one league magnetically north of the structure that smells of human blood and benzalkonium chloride,” he informed Spike.  “Turn on the hardened path that leads directly toward the Hellmouth, then go one league plus twenty-four paces past the chlorine spring.”

Spike narrowed his eyes at the demon, running this around in his mind a few moments. “About three miles north o’ the hospital – that should be Baker Street – turn west and go past the pool about three more miles, plus twenty-four paces? That’d be about the middle of the 600 block, I reckon.”

The demon shrugged, but Spike nodded to himself. He was pretty sure he could find it, but asked, “What color was the house?”

The green demon considered a moment before replying, “It is as a virgin lily, pure and chaste, touched along its borders by the first burst of spring upon the trees of the valley.”

Spike furrowed his brows a moment and nodded. “White with green trim, then.”

The demon shrugged again. “As you say.”

Spike handed over the kittens in payment, then left the rest in the care of Clem. He knew he’d never see those tabbies again, but Clem was good for it.

Spike strode purposely back toward the door where Sam was still waiting quietly, if not patiently.

“Ready to dance, pet?” he asked as he pulled the door open and surged past her, duster billowing in his wake.

“Dance?” she questioned, hurrying to catch him up. “What kind of dancing?”

“The best kind.” Spike replied, capturing his bottom lip with his teeth, and turning back to give her a wickedly evil leer.  “The dance of death.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, will the eggs be in the underbelly of this dwelling? And just who's house is it, anyway? What will Spike and Sam find when they get there? Will Buffy recover in time to join them? We'll see soon!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you'll stop in and let me know what you think! I really love hearing from everyone!
> 
> Thanks so, so much to my wonderful beta, Paganbaby, for all her support and suggestions! Any errors here are mine, since I can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> PaganBaby also made the amazing BANNER for the chapter! Isn't it awesome? How did she get Sam and Buffy both making the same face? heehee! Great job!


	14. The Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Sam track down the Suvolte demon eggs. What will they find? 
> 
> Fun quest: Can you spot the line from The Dresden Files book ‘Small Favors’ in here?

 

“Ri says Buffy’s sleeping it off. They tried to wake her up, but she’s still out of it. Willow’s there now,” Sam informed Spike, putting the radio back down as she drove, following his directions to the house the demon had described. “I guess it’s just you and me.”

Spike pursed his lips but nodded as he motioned for her to stop behind a green and white house in the middle of the block.

“Whose house is this?” Sam asked as she pulled the big truck to a stop in the alley behind the house Spike indicated, and cut the engine.

“Well, judgin’ by that Empire o’ the Geeks van parked in the drive, I’d say a wanker named Warren Mears,” Spike replied as he surveyed the house from the passenger seat of the Humvee.  “Been a bloody thorn in the Slayer’s side for a bit now. He’s currently a guest o’ the state, but he had a couple of blighters workin’ with him.”

“Human?” Sam asked, making sure the straps on her Kevlar vest were snug and double-checking her weapons.

Spike shrugged. “Physically, yeah.”

“So, you can’t take them,” she observed. “Can you even get inside?”

“Not sure,” Spike admitted. “But I’m fairly sure this isn’t a proper home with a decent threshold. Look at the windows – no drapes, no blinds, no lights; looks empty up there. I’d wager they’re just using it for a hideout, their nerd lair. In that case, gettin’ in won’t be a problem.

“But, yer right, can’t do anything directly to any humans in there, but I know a few o’ their weaknesses that I can exploit.”

“With your BS? Errr… excuse me, _poetic license_?” she wondered, a teasing note in her voice.

Spike grinned confidently at her. “Exactly, luv.”

“Is one of them a doctor?” Sam wondered, all her preparations completed.

Spike snorted. “Not even close. They’re bloody Whovians,” he explained.

Sam gave him a quizzical look, shaking her head.

“It’s a cult, they follow a bloke called ‘The Doctor’.”

“Doctor who?” Sam asked.

“Exactly,” Spike replied, reaching for the door handle. “Ready, then?”

Sam shook her head uncomprehendingly, but let it go since Spike was already opening the door. “Don’t you want some weapons?”

“I’ve already got mine,” he explained curtly, turning back to her and bringing his demon up to demonstrate.

Sam gasped and reached instinctively for the gun at her belt, but Spike shook the demon down before she could even get it pulled.

“Hope yer faster than that when it matters, luv. Cos right now, you’d be dinner.”

Spike stepped out of the truck without waiting for an answer from Sam, though he could fairly feel her scowl burning a hole in his back. He closed the door with barely a ‘click’ of the latch, and stalked soundlessly toward the exterior basement door, keeping to the shadows. He was sure there were cameras around, he’d like to avoid being detected before entering the wankers’ clubhouse, if possible.

Within a few moments, he felt Sam behind him, a few paces back, following in his footsteps. It made him uneasy having G.I. Jane behind him. He still didn’t put it past her to not shoot him in the back, despite her appreciation of his snark and sarcasm.

When he was within a few yards of the door, Spike stopped and crouched down in the shadows of an oak tree, waiting for Sam. She mimicked him, moving silently, and squatting down right next to him.

“That looks like the door to the basement,” he whispered in low tones. “If they’re here, that’s where they’ll be. Best to take ‘em by surprise. They’re bloody incompetent blighters, but even numpties get lucky sometimes.”

Sam nodded. “Do you think it’s locked?”

Spike shrugged. “Can’t say. I can kick it down if it is. Ready?”

Sam put a hand on his arm. “Wait. If it’s locked, I can pick it. If you kick it down, and any of those eggs have hatched, we won’t have any possible containment on them. If those demons get out, they could lay waste to Sunnydale, and just keep going. They grow fast, multiply like—"

“Tribbles,” Spike interjected.

Sam rolled her eyes. “— _rabbits_ , and their bloodlust is insatiable.”

“Killer rabbits now, is it? The ‘Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch’ should do the trick then,” Spike suggested.

Sam looked at him blankly, as if he’d just spoken in Chinese or ancient Etruscan.

“’Monty Python and the Holy Grail’? ‘Death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth’,” he prompted, holding his index fingers down from his mouth like fangs, waiting for her to get it.

When she just continued to stare at him, a deep furrow of confusion creasing her brow, Spike dropped his hands and rolled his eyes.

“Ya really need t’ get out more, luv. Know it must be embarrassing to be seen with a gormless tit like Finn in public, but ya can rent movies these days, and keep him hidden in the basement,” he advised.

“I … what?” Sam questioned, still utterly confused.

“Forget it, pet.  Can see you couldn’t spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your bloody throat,” Spike conceded with another sigh.

“So – keep the killer rabbits contained,” Spike picked up a thread of the conversation that Sam could grasp. “Good plan, that.”

“It’s not my first day at demon camp,” Sam advised, still looking a bit confused.

Spike gave her a tilt of the head in acknowledgement. “Ladies first, then,” he invited, waving a hand, allowing her to go ahead.

She pulled a little gadget from her belt and then crossed the last few yards to the door, keeping low and moving fast.

Spike waited a couple of beats and followed. The door, it turned out, was locked, but Sam and her gizmo had it opened within seconds. They both looked at each other, silently counting to three, and burst in as one, weapons drawn.

Luckily, Spike did not run face-first into a threshold. It was as he’d imagined, not a properly established home, but a lair for the little twerps to stay hidden from the Slayer. Evil lairs did not rate a threshold, even if the evil-doers were more nerdy evil-wannabes than actual demonic masterminds of destruction.

Inside, it sounded like Stormtroopers were attacking a small village, with screams of pain, shouts of triumph, and the whizzing of blasters exploding all around. It made both Sam and Spike duck, but no enemy was immediately visible from the top of the stairs. They both froze there a beat, but no blaster fire, or any other projectiles, ricocheted off the walls near them, so they started down the stairs. Sam, her Glock drawn and ready, took the lead, slipping silently down the wooden staircase to the main room with Spike just a step behind. 

At the bottom of the stairs, Spike rolled his eyes and let his demon fade as he pointed to two large chairs that were facing away from them. The chairs sat in front of a large television screen from which the sounds of intergalactic battle were coming. He motioned for Sam to circle around on one side, and he would go to the other. She nodded understanding and skulked around, keeping low and silent. Spike did the same, pausing only momentarily to pick up a few action figures from a shelf as he passed. They both reached their rendezvous point at the same time, appearing, as if by magic, next to Andrew and Jonathan, who occupied the chairs.

“Stop doing that! Let go of my joystick!” Jonathan whined, yanking his game controller out of Andrew’s reach.

“Well, stop shooting the Ewoks, you brute! They’re cute! And cuddly!” Andrew argued.

“I say shoot everything and let the Force sort them out!” Jonathan argued boldly, laughing maniacally, and firing another blast of white fire at the cute little teddy-bear cousins on the screen.

“Big talk for a little plonker,” Spike interjected from right next to Jonathan. “Maybe we should make that our mantra, eh? Whaddya say, soldier?”

Jonathan and Andrew both jerked convulsively in their seats and squealed in surprise. They nearly toppled their chairs over in their haste to get away from Spike, joysticks falling to the floor with a clatter as Ewoks screamed from the speakers in front of them.

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Sam replied flatly, making the two boys jump and scramble again, this time back towards Spike, to get away from her.

“W-w-what do you want now?” Andrew asked, his eyes flashing with terror. “We gave you everything the other night, I swear!”

“YOU gave him everything,” Jonathan corrected. “I told you not to give him the originals, that was our only—”

“SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE!” Andrew cut in. “I did what I had to do to save Timothy, and I won’t apologize for it!”

“Right then,” Spike cut off whatever Jonathan was going to say next. “What say we save a few more deserving individuals, then?  Let’s see what we ‘ave here…” Spike began holding up the various figures he had in his hands, reading the names off them. “… Oh, my old friend Boba Fett, and Han Solo, and ‘is sweetie pie, Princess Leia … and…” he continued, bringing another figure forth, but ‘accidentally’ dropping it.

“Oh, dear,” he pouted in mock despair. “I do believe our hero’s taken a bit of a tumble,” he reported solemnly, lifting his foot and bringing his heel down slowly and deliberately on Luke Skywalker, smashing the figure into dust beneath his boot. “May the Force be with ‘im.”

“ARRRGH!” both Jonathan and Andrew screamed in horror. Their hands shot up to cover their gape-jawed mouths, and their eyes bugged out, going as wide as saucers as they watched the annihilation of their idol.

“Now then,” Spike continued conversationally. “Shall any more of your little band o’ brothers meet the same fate, or you wanna tell us where the demon eggs are?”

“Eggs? What eggs? We don’t know anything about any eggs! Do you know about any eggs?” Jonathan stammered, looking at Andrew, then back at Spike. “Nope, no eggs here. We’re vegans!”

“We could run to the store and get some, though. It’ll only take a minute! I make a Denver omelet to die for! I guarantee you’ll love it. I’m an excellent cook,” Andrew offered eagerly.

Spike glared at him for a long moment, holding a Yoda figure up threateningly. “Ta ever so, Rain Man, but it’s demon eggs we’re after, not a bleedin’ brunch. I reckon Yoda won’t mind dying for the cause though, will he?”

“No … please! We don’t know anything!” Jonathan begged, dropping down onto his knees in front of Spike and pressing his palms together in supplication.

“We should just kill them and search the place,” Sam suggested. “We’re wasting time.”

Spike wasn’t entirely sure if she was kidding or not, but he shrugged, looking helplessly at the two boys. “Well, been nice doin’ business with ya, but you heard the lady,” he said in a commiserating tone, and began to turn away.

“Wait! Spike! You can’t just walk away and let her shoot us!” Jonathan argued.

“Can’t I, then?” he questioned looking back over his shoulder.

“No! We go way back! We’re buds! Pals! Comrades in arms! We were gonna let you into our gang!” Jonathan continued. “We’re taking over Sunnydale,” he offered confidentially, rising from his kneeling position.

“That right?” Spike prompted, turning back around fully to face the little nerd.

“Totally!” Andrew piped in, also standing up from where he’d fallen out of his chair.

“How ya plannin’ on doing that, then?” Spike wondered.

Jonathan and Andrew looked at each other, wide-eyed and nervous, trying to figure out an answer other than the truth, which was that they were taking out the Slayer.

“Shoot ‘em!” Spike ordered when they didn’t answer, turning away from the two nerds.

“No! Wait!” Jonathan begged, taking a halting step toward the vampire. “It’s just … well … Can I ask you something? How do you feel about the Slayer?”

Spike turned back and quirked a brow at the small brunette, studying him for a moment before answering. “Mortal enemies, aren’t we?”

Andrew giggled nervously. “Yeah, but we saw you … well … you weren’t exactly _fighting._ Well, _sometimes_ you were fighting, but mostly you were … definitely _not_ fighting,” the blond pointed out with a small shiver of pleasure from the memory.

Spike narrowed his eyes at the boy, and touched the tip of his tongue to his top teeth a moment before answering. “Ever hear the saying, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’ Can’t get much closer to the Slayer than a good shag, can ya?”

“I told you it was a diabolical plan! That he was just using her!” Jonathan announced triumphantly, punching Andrew hard in the arm. “You owe me a Funko Pop Darth Vader bobblehead – N.I.B!”

Andrew yipped in pain and rubbed the spot, wincing and mumbling angrily under his breath.

“We’re taking over Sunnydale by taking out the Slayer,” Jonathan confided now, confident in Spike being down with this plan. “We’ve been toying with her for a while, summoning demons and setting them on her, trapping her in time loops, Warren even had her thinking she’d killed Katrina!”

Spike quirked an interested brow at the boy. “Is that so? Brilliant, that.”

Andrew and Jonathan nodded eagerly, now standing shoulder to shoulder facing Spike. “And now we’re gonna take her down for good,” Jonathan assured Spike. “And then Sunnydale will be ours!”

Jonathan didn’t actually throw his head back and laugh diabolically, but Spike imagined the plonker wanted to, badly.

“And then we can get Warren back. I miss him,” Andrew added wistfully.

“We have a plan! Fool-proof!” Andrew continued more eagerly, with a confident nod of his head. “We were gonna let you in on it … until the whole _not-fighting_ with the Slayer thing. Warren even said your crypt would be the perfect place for us to hide the eg—”

Jonathan poked Andrew in the ribs with his elbow, cutting him off. “Ixnay on the eggsyay,” Johnathan growled under his breath to his compatriot, before turning back to Spike. “You can still be in on it! You can be the fourth member of The Trio!” he offered eagerly.

“Fourth member of The Trio, is it? Wouldn’t that make it a Quartet?”

Andrew and Jonathan frowned. “Yeah, I guess …” Jonathan admitted slowly. “But, there’s no singing.”

Andrew shook his head vehemently. “No singing. I can’t sing. I had mumps when I was a kid, it was really awful, like I seriously almost died. I actually think it was misdiagnosed small pox or maybe Dengue Fever. My mother was just beside herself! But it ruined my singing voice, now it just cracks—”

Spike looked up at Sam. “Shoot ‘em,” he ordered before dropping the rest of the action figures and turning away to begin searching for the eggs.

Sam cocked the gun and pointed it at Andrew. “NOOO! Spike! Wait!” Andrew swung around and held his hands up and repeated, “WAIT!” to the soldier, as well.

“Eggs,” she demanded in a flat tone, taking careful aim at his head. “Or bullet to the brain. Your choice.”

“They’re in the cabinets over there!” Andrew blurted out hurriedly, pointing to a corner of the basement where there were several tall, steel storage cabinets against the wall.

“YOU IDIOT!” Jonathan chastised, elbowing Andrew in the ribs again.

“Oh, sure, Lara Croft didn’t have the gun pointed at YOUR head!” Andrew shot back, retaliating by poking Jonathan in the side with a finger.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t have done any damage. Your brain is so small even Deadshot wouldn’t be able to hit it,” Jonathan retorted, returning the poke.

“What are you talking about? Deadshot _never_ misses!” Andrew argued, his hand shooting out for another jab at his partner-in-crime’s stomach. “Or have you forgotten? ‘ _He doesn’t get paid to waste bullets_ ’!”

While the master-villains were bickering and giving each other pokes, Sam and Spike both hurried over to the darkened corner of the basement. There were several well-built, metal, floor-to-ceiling storage cabinets lined up along the wall. With Sam aiming her gun at one of the middle cabinets, Spike slowly opened one side of the double door. Sure enough, inside, lined up in neat rows along each of the many shelves were gooey, bumpy, grey-green egg-shaped objects, completely filling the cabinet.

“They cocked it up,” Spike pointed out, seeing the eggs undulating, quite alive. “They didn’t keep ‘em frozen.”

From the other side of the room, Jonathan and Andrew stopped bickering and slapping at each other a moment, hearing this.

Jonathan observed, “Oh, _that’s_ what Warren meant by ‘keep them on ice’. Humph.”

“I told you that, but you said I was delusional!” Andrew started again. “ _’Oh, it’s just code’_ , you said. Well, I guess that makes _you_  Sith Lord Darth Vader, burning in the deadly lava of Mustafar, and it makes _me_ Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master,” Andrew proclaimed triumphantly, raising his chin in victory.

In the next instant the eggs began to open with gurgling pops, and football-sized demons, each with four spider-like legs, began emerging from the eggs. Sam opened fire, her aim true. Blue-grey blood bloomed from tribble bodies in founts of gore that reeked like nothing Sam had ever smelled before, making her gag with each breath. Despite her skill, there were just too many of them and they were already too agile and fast to hit them all. When her Glock ran empty, Spike slammed the cabinet door closed and put his back against it, containing them inside.

“Get the bloody nits outta here!” he yelled at her, seeing that the two idiots were still just standing there, slapping and poking each other. They didn’t even seem to realize what was happening as they argued about whose fault it was that the demon spawn wasn’t on ice and, therefore, who was the geekiest Geek in all of Geeksville.

“But …” Sam looked from the writhing cabinet to the boys, and then back at Spike who was straining to hold it.

“GO!” he bellowed, in a tone that no one over the past century had ever argued with, and Sam was no exception.

She went quickly, reloading her gun as she ran, ushering the two master criminals ahead of her up the stairs and out the door.

Spike struggled to hold the doors closed, trying to contain the demons, allowing the humans to escape. He could feel more and more of the eggs hatching within the cabinet he had his back against, the press against him growing with each passing moment. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only cabinet with eggs. A few moments after Sam exited with two-thirds of The Trio, the doors on the cabinets to the right and left of Spike exploded open, overfilled with hatching tribbles. Ravenous, newborn demons swarmed out of the cabinets like a hive of hornets that had just been kicked, and the only available meal was Spike.

Spike kicked at them as they surged toward him, jagged, razor-sharp teeth snapping at his flesh. His blows sent them flying back and crashing into video game equipment, computers, and action figures alike, but it wasn’t killing them. He caught one in mid-air as it leapt toward his throat, and he ripped it in two with his bare hands, growling and snarling as his demon joined the fight.

It was a frenzy of fists and fangs and snapping jaws, utter mayhem and pandemonium. This dance of death was no elegant, graceful ballet, but a maelstrom of blood and guts, a duel of wills contested in complete and utter bedlam.

Spike punched at the bloodthirsty creatures, shredding his knuckles, sending fragments of their shattered teeth flying. They struck his face and neck like shards of glass, cutting his flesh and impairing his vision. He ripped them apart, kicked them, stomped them, and even bit them if they got close enough to his fangs. Despite a herculean effort to stop them, they seemed to just keep coming, proving difficult, if not impossible to kill. They clambered up the walls to escape his boots, seeming to defy gravity, and leapt or dropped down on him from above.  One of the newborn monsters attached itself to his shoulder, its teeth searing his flesh, tearing at him, sending bright red blood spurting in all directions.

The vamp screamed in rage and agony, slamming his whole body back against the cabinet behind him over and over, smashing the attacker into a gory, blue-grey puddle of twisted bones and entrails. The strategy worked except for one thing: he bent the metal door of the cabinet he’d been guarding. There was now a gap between the doors that he couldn’t close or defend. The equally-ravenous inhabitants of that cabinet found the opening immediately, and began streaming out to join their brethren in the search for flesh.

Spike turned and began backing away from the tumult of snapping, attacking creatures, trying to wipe the streams of blood from his eyes as he did. A rumbling growl radiated from deep within him, vibrating the air like rolling thunder. It was a warning, one that ninety-nine percent of sentient life on Earth would take heed of. Unfortunately, the Suvolte demons were part of the other one percent. They did not stop or even hesitate.

As they came at him, Spike fended them off in a flurry of fists, feet, and fangs as he tried to get his back against another wall to slightly reduce their avenues of attack. He snarled and roared and howled in pain as their sharp teeth and long claws tore at his clothes and flesh. The small-but-mighty demons ripped out chunks of meat from his body, leaving spurting gouts of blood streaming like gory, hellish fountains in their wake.

He would never surrender, never submit, but it became increasingly clear to him that he would not make it out of this room. Not alive, or in one undead piece, at any rate. There were just too many of them, and they were doing more damage to him than he was to them.

He’d heard, of course, the term ‘having your life flash before your eyes,’ before, but for him, what flashed before his eyes was the one thing, the one _woman_ , that made his life worth living: Buffy.

In that moment he saw every dance that William the Bloody had shared with the Slayer who he could not kill. Every step, every turn, every sway, dip, and twirl, from the first moment he laid eyes on her until the last, it was all there swirling like a misty dream within his mind, within his heart. She had been the only one in over a hundred years of darkness who ever thought there might be light inside him. She had been the only one who had made him desperately want to be better; to be a man, not a monster, to be worthy of her.

The realization that he would not be able to keep his promise, ‘ _Till the end of the world_ ,’ tore at him as surely as the ravenous demons did. The thought made him fight even harder, blocking out the searing pain and fatigue that threatened to overtake him. He flailed wildly at the mob of demon spawn that was on the verge of overrunning him. Cursing and roaring, Spike fought with his heart; it was all he had left.

He didn’t break his promises. He just didn’t.

The swarm converged then, and he couldn’t keep them all at bay. Two of the relentless demons attached themselves to Spike’s right leg, worrying his hamstring between their vise-like jaws, ripping tendons and muscle alike.

Spike dropped to one knee, screaming in anguish, his body flexing like a bow as the blinding pain knifed through him like a bolt of lightning. He reached back and tore the two attackers off his leg in a desperate effort to survive one more minute, one more second. Blood spurted, and his flesh shredded painfully as it came away with them, still clamped in the demons’ clutching jaws. The downed vampire screamed again – part agony, part infuriated frustration – and crushed the two snapping, snarling demons, one in each hand, with a sickening squelch and a spray of reeking gore.

But it wasn’t enough. They just kept coming. He wasn’t enough.

Maybe he did break his promises. Maybe this time, he did.

“Buffy!” he keened as he tried unsuccessfully to regain his feet, staggering and falling back to one knee.

“Please forgive me,” he begged, a final, desperate, heart wrenching plea as he realized he’d danced the last dance with the woman who was his soul.

In the next instant there was a deafening ‘boom’ behind him, and another, and another, each coming in rapid succession.

‘ _If that bint shoots me in the back I’ll bloody kill ‘er if it’s the last thing I do’_ , he thought as he tried again to get to his feet while still fending off the attacking swarm. The gunfire moved closer and closer with each shot, and attacking demons fell by ones and twos into quivering heaps of rancid, bloody pulp. Their life force bubbled and gurgled out of the holes in their bodies like sea foam, covering the floor with a slippery, grey-green stinking goo, making footing ridiculously treacherous.

Spike was still trying to regain his feet when he was pulled up and backwards by a strong hand gripped on the collar of his duster. Within just a few staggering steps his back hit a wall with a bone-jarring thud. He turned and glanced quickly at his unlikely ally who had a demon-blood-splattered Glock in each hand. She seemed to fire with pinpoint accuracy from either side, hitting her target much more often than not. Not every shot was lethal, though, and the demons were relentless and insatiable. Even injured and bleeding, dragging limbs, some barely able to move, they would return, drawn by the ravenous hunger for blood.

The two unlikely allies stood, shoulder to shoulder, their backs against the wall, fighting for their lives, and the lives of everyone in Sunnydale and beyond. But Spike fought for even more than his life, he fought for his honor. He’d made a promise to a lady, and, right now, in the putrid bowels of hell, it was his honor that kept him battling beyond the capacity of his body.

Spike heard both of Sam’s guns go empty with a ‘click’ and the demons seemed to realize it – they were learning and growing at an alarming rate. In the few seconds it took her to reload, what remained of the demon horde surged toward them, clambering along the walls, ceiling, and floor, swarming toward them from all angles.

Sam had no choice but to abandon her guns and pull her knife. The demons were on them too quickly, she couldn’t get the fresh clips into the guns in time.

As he fought next to her, Spike could tell she was well trained and skilled, but she was also tired, and injured. Bright, red blood ran down her black combat gear in streams from bites and cuts inflicted by the Suvolte offspring that had gotten past her gunshots. Even her Kevlar had been no match for the razor-sharp teeth and talons. He could see several deep, blood-soaked slashes down her chest and across her abdomen, the vest hanging in tatters.  She was fading, and her knife missed its mark nearly as often as it hit, and even when it hit, it was often only a glancing blow now.

He longed for it to be Buffy beside him. This was what they were made for, the two of them fighting in a deadly ballet. They’d done nothing but dance since the first night they’d met. They knew each other’s moves as well as they knew their own names. They could anticipate each other’s strategy, and cover each other’s weaknesses.

But it wasn’t Buffy. It was just a girl. A girl with bloody tragic taste in men, it had to be said, but that wasn’t relevant right now. She was just a human with no special powers, trying her best to beat back the darkness. In the past, that darkness could well have been him she was battling, but now he stood beside her, trying to push the evil back, trying to defeat the darkness.

In that moment, he felt that flicker of light deep inside his chest that Buffy had sparked pulse and grow just that much larger, that much brighter. He knew he had to help this girl, this soldier. He had to save her, no matter the cost. It was the only honorable thing to do.

Spike felt a protective rage blossom deep inside him the likes of which he’d only previously felt for those he loved deeply. It reignited his resolve with a red-hot glow of furious anger and he directed it all at the voracious killing machines surrounding them.

He moved in front of Sam, gritting his teeth against the pain, hobbling jerkily on his hamstrung right leg. He shielded her as much as he could with his body, trying to keep the Suvolte off her. Despite the pain, his boots stomped down on the horrid creatures with sickening crunches, splattering discolored blood and bowels in all directions. Any tribbles that got near his hands were ripped apart like melons, their two halves tossed away, rolling like gory, drunken bowling balls across the floor. He kicked and punched them away when too many came at once, fending them off, waiting for his chance to inflict real damage when only one or two attacked at a time.

One dropped down from the ceiling onto his back and clamped its razor-sharp teeth into his trapezius, tearing a chunk out of his flesh. He roared in pain and reached for it, but then felt Sam stabbing and gutting it from behind him. The dead tribble slid down his back and plopped lifelessly to the floor, and she kicked it away furiously.

She was still fighting with him, she had not given up, and that fueled his tenacity. He would not give up either.

The floor and walls were slick with pungent viscera and fluids of every description. Vampire, demon, and human blood merged into one slimy mass, making even standing up a challenge. It was like walking on a sheet of ice covered in oil, perilous and slick.

Sam slipped as she lunged for one of the vicious demons that was coming down the wall, falling hard on the slimy floor. Her knife was jarred from her hand with the impact, and, in her attempt to regain her feet, she took Spike down with her. They sprawled in a gooey tangle of limbs, unable to get traction to rise. Their hands and feet slid out from under them as exhaustion, injury, and blood-loss collected its long-awaited toll.

They had nearly done it. Nearly won. Nearly, but not nearly enough.

There were only four of the ravenous spawn left uninjured, but in just the short time since hatching, they’d already doubled in size and also in cunning. The creatures were working together now, two acting as a distraction while the other two would strike, then back away, like a pack of wolves.

Spike swung and kicked at them from his position on the floor, but with little effect, unable to get any leverage. Each time one charged in it would take a bite of flesh, either from him or Sam, who was now just fighting to stay conscious. Each bite seemed to make the demons bolder and stronger, while making the heroes weaker and more alarmed.

Spike spotted a possible refuge and began dragging himself and Sam toward a large steamer trunk beneath the stairs while also trying to fend off the growing Suvolte. It was slow going, the slippery floor making traction difficult for them, but, unfortunately, it was not a problem for the demon spawn and their nimble spider-like legs and sharp claws.

“Don’t give up on me now, pet. Finn’ll bloody lecture me t’ death if ya don’t make it,” he encouraged her.  “Can endure a lot, I can, but not one of his sanctimonious lectures.”

All Sam could do was wheeze out a wet splatter of blood from her broken nose in reply, but she didn’t give up. She crawled, when she couldn’t crawl, she clung to Spike and let him drag her, she kicked and fought with everything she had, with _more_ than she had. The two battered, gore-splattered heroes would move a foot or two, and then kick and punch at the demons, driving them off, move, and punch, move and punch. It seemed to take forever to reach the trunk. Perhaps it did.

The trunk was large and made solidly of thick wood and iron strapping. Definitely not one of the new reproductions, but something, Spike thought, that might’ve been from his actual lifetime – back when quality meant something, and things were made to last. What it was lacking ornamentation it made up for in durability and solidity, which is exactly what he needed now.

“Open it!” he instructed her as he continued to fend off the demon spawn, enduring bites to his arms and legs as they shot in but backed off before he could inflict any real damage to them.

Sam struggled with the latch, her fingers battered, swollen, and slick with blood, but she finally got it open. In a semi-daze, she dragged out blankets and quilts, a few faded baby clothes and a wedding dress, tossing it all on the gooey floor.

“Not sure we’ll both fit,” she wheezed out, her voice muffled from her swollen and blood-crusted nasal passages.

“GET IN!” he ordered, turning a hard, blue glare on her.

She didn’t have the energy to argue and she knew they didn’t have much time left. She thought she could actually see the demons growing larger and stronger before her eyes. She dragged herself into the trunk, curling her body into a painful ball to try and make room for Spike.

“Is there room? I can’t … I’m too big,” she gasped out, doing her damnedest to transform her long, tall, strong body into something smaller with just the force of her will.

Spike gave her a weak smile. “You’re perfect, pet. No worries,” he assured her as he dropped the lid and clicked the latch shut over her, cutting off her scream of protest.

“Got ‘em just where I want ‘em now, don’t I?” he muttered as all four demons charged him at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no!!! How's Spike gonna get out of this?? Can he get out of it? 
> 
> Did you find the line from The Dresden Files which I just couldn't resist using? (If you haven't listened to James Marsters perform the audio books for that series, you are missing out! Dude! Seriously!)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are beyond amazing -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! She's also the creator of all the amazing banners! I feel so lucky to have her do those for me!
> 
> More to come soon!


	15. Search and Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy goes looking for Spike and Sam – what will she find?

 

“Buffy!”

“SPIKE! WHERE ARE YOU?”

“Buffy!”

“SPIKE! ANSWER ME!”

“Buffy, wake up! Buffy!”

Buffy woke with a jerk, her heart racing, pulse thundering in her ears, her eyes wide with confusion and fear. “Where’s Spike?” she demanded of the bewildered Willow who had just shaken her screaming friend from a nightmare.

Buffy was still in the chair where Spike had placed her before he left. Riley was still on the couch looking even more dour than before. His right arm was still strapped against his chest, several splinted fingers rested against his shoulder, and he had a heavy brace on his right leg.  Dawn and Willow were standing over the Slayer, looking worried.

“He went with Sam to find the tribbles, remember?” Dawn offered.

“How long ago? How long have I been out?” Buffy asked, rubbing her head, which she just noticed was pounding like a jack-hammer and on the verge of a really impressive implosion.

“About three hours,” Dawn informed her, offering her a bottle of Gatorade and a couple of ibuprofens.

Buffy looked at it dazedly, but took them both. “How did you know I’d need that?”

Dawn smiled innocently and shrugged. “Sisterly intuition.”

“Have you heard from Spike… or Sam?” Buffy asked, looking from Willow to Dawn to Riley.

They all shook their heads solemnly.

“She missed the last scheduled check in. I haven’t been able to raise her on the coms,” Riley offered sourly. A worried line creased his strong features, making him look much older than he had just a few hours ago.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it? She should’ve checked in, at least,” Buffy suspected.

The concerned look in Riley’s eyes confirmed her pronouncement without him saying anything.

“We need to go,” Buffy announced, standing up abruptly. The Slayer swayed on her feet a bit from the sudden change in position, and Willow caught her arm to help steady her.

“I don’t think you should be going anywhere. They said you were…” Willow hesitated, trying to find a tactful word, but Riley and Dawn both filled in at once with different words:

“High.”

“Drunk.”

Buffy closed her eyes and waited a few moments to let her head stop swimming. Feeling steadier, she headed for the weapons trunk, walking purposely. “I’m fine. Spike and Sam aren’t. I can feel it,” she informed them. “I’m going. You can come or not.”

“Finally,” Riley grumbled. “The Slayer does her job.”

Buffy looked up from the open trunk and turned a steely gaze on him, a straight, short sword in her hand. “As I recall, it was me being strong and doing my job that you had a problem with. You gave up all rights to judge me when you ran off into the night. If you don’t want your other arm broken, I suggest you shut the hell up.”

“If you hadn’t been cavorting with demons and vampires, none of this would’ve happened!” Riley countered, struggling to stand up.

“ME?! This is _MY FAULT_?” Buffy whirled on him, the razor-sharp blade raised menacingly toward his throat as he painfully gained his feet. “You shot a fucking gun at my sister right here in my house,” she reminded him in a terrifyingly calm voice.

“I shot at a demon, and I would’ve killed the demon if Spike hadn’t got in the way. That’s MY JOB, _Slayer_! It’s your job too, but apparently you’ve forgotten that, too busy screwing them instead of dusting them,” Riley countered, standing his ground, almost daring her to cut him.

“How dare you! You don’t know anything about me! You ran off! You know who stayed? Who fought? Who protected Dawn? That vampire!” Buffy raged at him, the blade moving forward a fraction of an inch more, the tip just barely touching Riley’s Adam’s apple. “You know who’s never asked me to be anything but who and what I am? _Spike_.”

Willow gave a nervous laugh and stepped carefully between the two angry ex-lovers, gingerly pressing the sword off to the side, away from Riley’s throat. “Aren’t reunions fun? This is just the funnest with all the pent-up hostility and betrayal boiling out. Maybe we should just take a breath now. Plenty of time for bloodshed later, right?” she asked a little nervously, looking between Riley and Buffy.

“Remember Sam? No communication?” the witch reminded Riley, who was still staring daggers at Buffy.

Willow turned to Buffy, who was returning Riley’s glare with interest. “And Spike? Slayer dream? In trouble? Remember?” she asked hopefully.

Finally, the two combatants seemed to take a breath at once, their eyes shifting to Willow, who gave them a nervous smile. “See? Fun.”

Buffy and Riley both rolled their eyes, but turned away from each other. Buffy went back to the trunk and grabbed a couple of smaller knives to go with the sword, along with a stake, tucking them all into the waistband of her jeans.

“Can I have a weapon?” Dawn asked, peering into the trunk curiously. She reached for a crossbow, but Buffy shoved a can of pepper spray into her hand.

“Well, this will be helpful if we get mugged by an unarmed human,” she muttered, putting it in her pocket. “Demons probably use this stuff on their food to give it some extra ‘oomph.’”

“You aren’t fighting demons,” Buffy informed her flatly.

Buffy stood up and met Dawn’s eyes, her own shimmering with emotion. “I know I’m not the best big sister, and I’m no replacement for Mom, but this isn’t a rule I’ll let you break. I can’t lose you. I don’t ever want you hurt. Period.”

Dawn wanted to argue, but the resolute look in Buffy’s eyes stopped her. Instead, she pulled her top lip between her teeth to stop the rebuttal that hovered on the tip of her tongue, and nodded slowly.

“Can we go?” Riley asked impatiently, hobbling awkwardly toward the door with the limbs on his right side both injured. He had a crutch in his left arm, but it did little good being on the opposite side from his torn-out knee, and he winced, trying to smother grunts of pain, with each step.

“You aren’t going,” Buffy informed him. “You’re injured, a liability.”

“Pretty sure you aren’t in charge of me,” Riley retorted. “Plus, I’m the only one who has their last known twenty. I’m going.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Despite side-swiping a tree, bouncing over several curbs, bumping one or two parked cars, and narrowly missing a few light poles, Willow pulled Riley’s Humvee up behind Sam’s in the much-too-narrow alley behind Warren Mears’ rented hideout and thankfully cut the rumbling engine. She let out a long breath, wondering if she’d been holding it all the way from Buffy’s.

Riley couldn’t drive with his mangled knee, and had reluctantly handed the keys over to the witch, being, in his opinion, the least likely to get them killed, despite her objection that she’d never driven a house before.

“You all stay here, I’ll go check it out,” Buffy ordered, opening the passenger door.

“Are you sure you’re alright now? No leftover fishies swimming around?” Dawn asked from the back next to Riley. “Maybe I should come with … or Will.”

Buffy shook her head. “I’m fine,” she assured them. To demonstrate, she held up both hands in front of her face, fingers spread wide. “Ten, right?”

Buffy jumped down from the high truck and picked up the short sword from the floorboard, “You guys stay here and be ready to shoot anything that comes out of that door,” she instructed, jabbing a thumb toward the basement entrance. She started to close the door of the truck, but hesitated, turning back.

“Except me … or Spike … or Sam,” she amended. “Or, you know, any other humanoids.”

“We should have Riley shoot any escaping demon tribbles, since he’s the only one actually armed,” Dawn clarified huffily. “Got it.”

“That’s what I said,” Buffy agreed before closing the door firmly but quietly, and starting toward the house.

She didn’t even try to be stealthy. Spike and Sam were already here, so presumably whatever element of surprise there had been was gone. Images of the nightmare she’d been trapped in before Willow woke up her flashed through her mind unbidden: Spike broken and bleeding, large gashes of flesh ripped away, demons tearing at him, a large puddle of blood and gore covering the floor.

Her stomach tightened and lurched, and she felt bile rise to the back of her throat. She’d seen plenty of gruesome things in her young life, but seeing Spike like that, even in a dream, was the worst. She prayed that it was only a dream, not a premonition. She prayed she’d go in and find Sam and Spike calmly cracking demon eggs or having a beer after finishing the job.

Her prayers were not answered.

The door to the basement was locked when she tried the knob. Buffy backed up a step and kicked it hard with the flat of her boot. The doorjamb splintered as the heavy metal door flung open, banging on the wall behind it and nearly bouncing back into her face. Pressing the door open more slowly, she stopped then and listened, but didn’t hear anything. She could, however, smell something and it reeked like nothing she’d ever experienced before, some combination of sewage and skunk, with a hint of rotting fish and dead rat for flavor.

Buffy turned her head to take a deep breath of fresh air and held it as she slowly entered the basement, sword at the ready. She was forced to breathe finally as she reached the bottom of the stairs, but tried to do so only through her mouth, although she wasn’t sure if tasting the stench was any better than smelling it.

Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, she scanned the room as best she could. It was only dimly lit, making it hard to see into the darker corners. The normally bright, overhead lights were coated with thick, blue-grey demon blood, which oozed down like a viscous, syrupy rain in places, and cast a disturbing pallor over the whole basement.

There were demon bodies strewn everywhere, some clearly dead, torn in half or gutted, others clinging to life. She stabbed her sword into any that might be alive as she began to move carefully through the space. Her boots slipped in the slick gore on the floor – it was like walking on a sheet of ice covered in a thick layer of slimy algae with a snail snot dressing poured liberally over top. She nearly lost her balance twice – slipping and sliding in the reeking goo – only saving herself by using her sword like a ski-pole to catch her balance.

As she moved further into the basement, she became increasingly more frantic. There was no sign of Spike or Sam, apart from blotches of red blood, which stood out alarmingly from the blue-grey blood and entrails of the demons.

In the center of the room, Buffy stopped and drew in a shallow, cautious breath. “Spike?” she hissed out, her voice low as she turned in a complete circle amid the destruction. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to keep her voice low, other than the overwhelming sense of death that permeated the room.

“Spike?” she tried again.

Nothing. No reply.

“God dammit, Spike, where are you?” she muttered more to herself than him, but suddenly heard a faint rustling in the inky black shadows beneath the stairs.

Buffy’s heart seized in pain and pleasure at the sight of him – pain from his condition, but pleasure that he at least wasn’t dust.

His limp body was draped face-down over a large box. Both he and the box were coated in the same ooze as the rest of the basement, but it was mixed in with a disturbing amount of bright red blood. He looked very much like she had seen in her dream, and it was horrific. There didn’t seem to be a single part of him that wasn’t bloody and covered with demon slime. Large portions of his flesh were torn away, leaving raw, ragged-edged, gaping holes in his arms, legs, and back. Glistening white bone shone through the gore in places and she thought she could see striations on some of it, as if it had been gnawed on.  To complete the horrid tableau, muscle, tendons, and veins dangled loosely from the edges of the ravaged gashes in grotesque chunks.

It was like nothing she’d ever seen before and hoped she’d never have to see again. As her eyes traveled over the scene in shock and horror, she saw a nest of snakes coiled the floor beneath him and she took an involuntary step back in renewed alarm. But, no, not snakes, intestines, she realized after a moment.

Buffy puked. Suddenly and violently.

She was still dry-heaving when she heard the rustling again, very near. She looked up to see one of the injured demon spawn gnawing on Spike’s foot, his boot having been chewed completely through, exposing his bloody, half-eaten foot. His toes were gone, as was part of his foot, and the horrid creature was working on devouring the remainder as Buffy watched.

Rage exploded inside Buffy like an atom bomb. She raised her sword and brought it down on the demon again and again and again, pulverizing it, chopping it into little julienne shards of demon flesh.  Blue-grey blood flew everywhere, along with slivers of bone and chunks of flesh and entrails, covering her and everything else nearby that wasn’t already soaked. She forgot about the stench as she swung the blade down on the thing, taking deep breaths as she hurled obscenities at it, its mother, father, siblings, and entire family tree.

Finally, her adrenaline and fury dwindled, and she subsided, her chest heaving, her breath coming in ragged gasps, and catching painfully in her throat. She turned back to Spike, sword hanging limply by her side, and tried to figure out what to do, how to move him … and where was Sam? If she was as badly injured as Spike, she wouldn’t have survived. Could the demons have eaten her entirely?

Buffy took one long, shaky breath before stepping up close to the vampire and laying her palm against his ravaged, blood-and-gore-coated cheek. She jerked her hand away suddenly as shards of broken Suvolte teeth pricked her palm and fingers.

“What the…” she breathed, confused, looking at her hand where blood welled from several small pinpricks, and then back down at Spike’s face. She could see dozens of small projectiles imbedded in the flesh of his face and neck, each one as sharp as a tiny razor.  She sighed heavily and blinked back dampness that suddenly sprang to her eyes. Was there any part of him that hadn’t been ravaged?

“Spike … can you hear me?” she asked softly, leaning down near his ear.

There was no response, which Buffy thought was just as well. Unconsciousness was a blessing now.

The Slayer found a relatively clean quilt beside the box Spike was draped over, and laid it out on the floor. Swallowing the bile back that continued to rise into her mouth and resolutely blinking back tears, Buffy gently pulled Spike off the box and laid him down flat on his back on the open quilt.

As soon as she stood back up, something jumped out from the shadows behind the box, straight at her. She yelped in surprise and ducked. The fast, agile Suvolte sailed over her head, hitting the wall behind her with a squelching sound.  That barely slowed the demon down as it sprang back away from the wall and hurtled at Buffy again. The Slayer grabbed her weapon and whirled around, sword whistling through the air as she swung on instinct alone. She caught the thing right in the middle, the razor-sharp sword slicing through it cleanly, sending blood and guts flying in all directions.

The reeking stench of demon blood and entrails rose anew from the severed body as it plopped down in two pieces at her feet, splashing even more goo up on her.

“Why can’t demons smell like … roses or … chocolate? Why is it always sewers and spoiled sushi?” Buffy complained wrinkling her nose.

She took a moment to look around for more possible attackers, but didn’t see anything else moving, or at least nothing else jumped out at her.

Feeling slightly uneasy, the Slayer took a deep breath to steady herself for the next task. She realized too late that had been a mistake. Her stomach clenched and her gorge rose, bile exploding from her throat again. She turned her head, trying not to add to the gore covering Spike, and waited for the convulsions in her stomach to subside.

This time, trying to not breathe at all, Buffy gathered up all of Spike’s insides which were currently outside his body and did her best to put them generally back where they belonged. She had no idea if vampires actually used or needed all their entrails, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Buffy wrapped Spike up like a burrito in the quilt, trying to pull it around him tightly to help keep everything in place, before gathering him up in her arms as gently as possible and carrying him up the stairs and outside.

On the back lawn a few yards from the house, Buffy’s friends – and Riley – were waiting anxiously for her.

“Sam!” Riley exclaimed, trying to hobble forward quickly to meet Buffy.

“No, it’s Spike,” she corrected him, kneeling down and placing her bundle down gently on the cool, dew-damp grass.

“ _Spike_!? What the hell, Buffy!? Have you lost your mind? Where’s Sam!?” Riley thundered at her, grabbing her arm and yanking her back up to her feet.

“I don’t know! But if you’ll let go of me, I’ll go try to find her!” Buffy seethed, yanking her arm from his grasp.

She turned to Willow and Dawn, who were gape-jawed, staring from the still form on the grass and back up at the gore-covered Slayer.

“He’s bad,” Buffy told them. “Don’t unwrap him; I’m not sure how to fix it. It’s… really bad,” she repeated, just then realizing that tears were leaking from her eyes, running down through the splatters of demon blood, and dripping from her chin.

She blinked back her emotions and took a couple of deep breaths of fresh air, steeling her nerve, before turning determinedly back toward the house.

“I’ll find Sam,” she assured them as she strode away, sounding much more confident than she felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can Spike heal from that much damage? Will Sam be okay? She didn't make any sound all that time Buffy was in there -- not a good sign! She had been badly injured and bleeding, will Buffy realize where she is in time? And will someone please smack Riley?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are beyond amazing -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! And her banners are simply wonderful! I can't ever thank her enough for taking the time to make these! They're utter perfection! Thanks, PB! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	16. What Would Spike Do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy continues her search for Sam. What will she find?

* * *

 

Buffy stood at the top of the stairs and scanned the floor of the basement below, looking for Sam or anything that seemed to be human at all. Debris was strung everywhere, tables were toppled over, cabinets and shelves knocked to the floor, their contents strewn from one end of the basement to the other. To make the search harder, everything was covered in blood or guts or both, including the light fixtures, casting a gloomy pallor over the room. It was as if the whole place had been painted a sickly blue-grey and then splotched with red. Sam, or parts of Sam, might be any of the nondescript, gory lumps that were scattered across the basement floor.

There was nothing else Buffy could do but to dive into the gruesome mess and search, inch-by-inch until she found Riley’s wife.  _Or found parts of her,_  her mind added unhelpfully as she descended the stairs.

“Sam?” she called out as she went, stopping a moment to listen. There was no sound in the basement except for the occasional, soft ‘plop, plop, plop’ of the thick, reeking Suvolte blood as it dripped from the ceiling like rain from a sewer. Apart from that, the room was deathly still. “Sam?!” she tried again louder, but still nothing.

Buffy started searching at the bottom of the stairs, following the wall, righting chairs and tables as she went. She picked up, or at least turned over, anything that she couldn’t immediately identify as ‘not Sam’ that lay in her path. When she reached the wall at the end of the room, she turned around and began going back, searching another swath of floor next to the one she’d just completed.

Her hands and arms were completely soaked in blood and stinking goo of all descriptions, as were her boots and lower legs from wading through it.  The rest of her was merely ‘splattered’ with the gunk – that wasn’t really a huge improvement. She slipped and slid in the mess; she could not recall ever walking on anything as slippery as this in her life – and she’d been an ice skater for years. Things crunched under her feet, and she tried not to think about what they might be as she kicked lifeless demon bodies out of her way.

_Maybe Sam hadn’t come in with Spike_ , she thought as she continued searching, but she knew that wasn’t true. She’d seen shell casings on the floor and some of the dead tribbles had obviously been shot.

_Maybe she got out,_ Buffy thought hopefully _._  But if she’d gotten out, surely, she would’ve radioed Riley.

Suddenly, a piece of the gore near Buffy’s feet detached itself and leapt at the Slayer’s face, strings of rancid, mucus-like liquid trailing like snotty tails in its wake. Buffy yelped and jerked back, instinctively putting her hands up to block it.  She fell hard onto her back in the slippery fluids that covered the floor, cracking her head against the cement.

Colorful stars burst in front of her eyes from the impact, but she had no time to admire them now. The injured demon spawn snapped at Buffy’s hands and face, taking a chunk out of the fleshy mound at the base of her left thumb. Buffy shrieked in pain, trying to get a grip on the squirming, slippery demon as it clawed her forearms, leaving deep lacerations from wrist to elbow on both arms. She finally managed to get a grip on one if its insectoid legs and she flung it as hard as she could against the closest wall. It hit with a sickening squelch against the solid brick and slid down, seeming to deflate as it slithered to the floor, another pile of reeking goo.

Buffy muttered a long string of expletives as she sat up looking like a monster emerging from a muddy, stinking swamp. Blue-grey tendrils of muck oozed from her hair onto her shoulders and covered her entire body, as if she’d bathed in the mess. She touched a hand to the back of her head and pulled it away to check for blood – her blood. There wasn’t anything red on her fingers, only demon blood. Just a bump then – she’d live.

The Slayer jerked again in surprise when the Suvolte spawn she’d just ‘killed’ began to move again, pulling itself forward toward her with its one unbroken leg.

“You have  _got_  to be kidding me!” she exclaimed, reaching into the waistband of her jeans and pulling out one of the knives she’d brought as backup to the sword. As soon as the thing crept into reach of her, she stabbed the knife down between what she hoped were its eyes. It was so broken and beaten and covered in slime that she wasn’t completely sure she’d hit her intended target until it went limp. She twisted the knife a couple of times before pulling it out, just to make sure. She looked at the knife then and decided that it was just not worth cleaning, and she dropped it on the floor next to the creature.

“Now, be a good bug and stay dead,” she ordered it as she began to push herself up, but her feet slipped again, and she fell back hard onto her ass. She tried to grab hold of a toppled chair near her for support, but couldn’t keep her grip on it through the sewage-like sludge. Time and again she attempted to rise, only to slip and fall back into the pool of stinking viscera and blood.

“I am not amused,” she announced sarcastically to the room at large, starting to feel like she was on an episode of Candid Camera, half expecting Allen Funt to pop out of the goo at any moment pointing a camera at her.

She sighed, wiping the grotesque sludge away from her eyes with an equally grungy hand. She needed a new strategy, this was obviously not working. She got to her hands and knees and crawled cautiously over to the stairs.  She’d found that relatively clean quilt beneath them when she’d found Spike, and she’d left her sword leaning against the wall there too.  Digging in the furthest corner under the stairs, she found a blanket with only minimal goop on it and used it to wipe her face, hair, arms and hands. She then retrieved her sword and, sticking the point of it into the floor for traction, used it to rise back to her feet.

She needed a new plan. This was taking too long and getting her nothing but exhausted and covered in stinking grunge.

“What would Spike do…” she muttered to herself, scanning the room and trying to reconstruct the battle in her mind. Her eyes settled on the cabinets in the far corner, all their doors flung open and dented or smashed. Her mind conjured the sight, the tribbles emerging, Spike and Sam fighting them. Based on the carnage in the basement, she knew there would have been too many for Spike and Sam to fight at once, they would’ve been overrun. Buffy’s eyes caught the outline of two handguns sunk in the sludge on the floor a few feet away from where she stood, close to the wall next to her.

Buffy bit her lip, Sam had made it that far, obviously. She looked from that spot to where Spike had been draped over that big wooden box, her eyes fixing on it, realization dawning. She huffed out a breath and rolled her eyes.

“What would Spike do?” she muttered to herself. “Be the big, fucking hero: save the girl,” she answered, pulling at the latch anxiously.

Buffy swung the top of the trunk up and found a battered and bloodied Sam curled into a ball inside, her knees tucked up under her chin, her arms wrapped around them like a fetus. She, too, was covered in scratches, bites, bruises, blood, and the stench of demon guts, but nothing like Spike had been.

“Sam! Sam! Can you hear me?” Buffy asked worriedly, reaching down to touch the woman. Buffy let out a relieved breath when Sam stirred and moaned, her eyes blinking against the dim light.

“Are you okay? Can you move?” Buffy continued, reaching down to help her.

“What … where?” Sam muttered uncertainly, her voice thick with blood from her broken nose, as she started to sit up, grasping the edge of the trunk for support.

Buffy frowned worriedly when Sam sat up. The soldier’s tattered vest revealed deep, bloody cuts across her chest and stomach. Buffy looked down in the bottom of the trunk and saw a disturbingly large puddle of blood – Sam’s blood. That’s probably what that one demon was after that had jumped out from behind the box at her – it had been trying to get to that blood, to Sam.

“It’s me, Buffy,” the Slayer reminded her, trying to sound untroubled. “Do you remember? You came to find the eggs with Spike.”

Sam closed her eyes, pressing a hand to her forehead, then nodded slowly, re-orienting herself, trying to get her spinning head to at least slowdown from Tilt-a-Whirl to Merry-Go-Round speed. She tried to clear her throat, which felt as dry as a Mojave sandstorm in the middle of a hundred-year drought, to answer Buffy, but all Sam could taste was blood – hers and the demons’. It was revolting beyond measure or darkest imagination, and her stomach quailed painfully as she swallowed back the bloody bile that rose into her throat.

She choked and coughed a few moments as Buffy waited, keeping an eye out for more not-quite-dead demons to show up. None did.

“Where’s Spike?” Sam rasped out when the coughing fit subsided, looking up at Buffy with swollen, blackened, but concerned eyes.

“He’s outside,” Buffy assured her. “Can you stand up?”

Sam shook her head negatively, but said, “I think so,” and began to try to unfold her stiff, injured limbs from the cramped space.

Buffy helped the soldier, putting an arm around Sam’s back, beneath her arms, and lifting her slowly up to her feet.

“Did he … win?” Sam asked, still dazed and shaky but her memory of what had happened returning to her as she looked around the blood-soaked battlefield.

“Well, he didn’t dust, but not sure I’d call it a win. I guess you could say he didn’t lose,” Buffy assured her, helping the woman step out of the trunk onto the slippery floor.

Sam’s feet slid, and she gasped in surprise, clutching at Buffy for support. “I gotcha,” Buffy assured her, as the Slayer bent down and pressed her shoulder into Sam’s mid-section, lifting the larger woman easily into a fireman’s carry.

A stifled moan came from the brunette’s throat, but no further complaint was heard, despite having the gashes in her stomach pressed painfully into the Slayer’s shoulder. Buffy kept one hand on Sam, pinning the soldier in place, while using the sword in the other hand to keep from slipping as she came out from the alcove beneath the stairs and started up them.

Outside on the lawn, it took Buffy a moment to process the scene in front of her. First, she saw Spike laying on his back, unrolled from his blanket, still unconscious, the snakes of his intestines spilling out from his abdomen again. Beside the vampire’s prone and unmoving body, Dawn and Willow were both on the ground sitting atop a struggling Riley. Dawn had her pepper spray out and, based on Riley’s swollen, watering eyes, she’d used it on him at least once.

“What the hell?” Buffy demanded as she reached them, bending over and gently setting Sam on her feet.

“He was trying to get Spike to wake up!” Dawn answered, still threatening Riley with the pepper spray. “He was hitting him and yelling at him! Wanting Spike to tell him where Sam was.

“We stopped him,” the girl finished, proudly. “I also puked on him. It was his own fault for unwrapping Spike like that.”

“Oh my God, Spike,” Sam’s voice was barely a rough whisper, but it could be heard clearly above Riley’s grunts of indignation at being held captive by the two girls.

Sam sunk down onto her knees next to the vampire, her eyes unbelieving. The soldier couldn’t fully process what she was seeing as her eyes wandered over him, head to foot. The damage was so massive it overwhelmed her senses, her emotions, and her mind, leaving her feeling weak and dizzy – or, well, weaker and dizzier. Tears welled in her swollen eyes and she touched a hand down on the vamp’s neck as if to feel for a pulse.

“He saved me,” she muttered thickly, more to herself than the others, her eyes glued to his battered and bloodied face.

Buffy shot Riley a sharp glare. “Of course he did, because that’s what Spike does. He. Saves. People.”

Buffy knelt beside Sam and pulled her hand away from Spike’s neck. “He’s not dead … or not … completely dead,” she assured Sam in a gentle tone. “He’ll ... he’ll be okay. I’ve seen him come back from worse.” She wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but she had seen him come back from some horrific things.

“Oh, that’s so true,” Willow agreed optimistically from her seat on top of Riley’s legs. “Buffy dropped an organ on him once, it broke his back! Paralyzed him from the waist down for a while. And Glory dug bits of his guts out, beat him senseless head-to-toe, but he got over it. And he fell off that tower, it killed Buffy, but Spike was  _fine_.”

“I don’t think we have time for more fun stories of ‘How Spike’s Suffered at Buffy’s Hands’ just now, but thanks for all those reminders,” Buffy cut her friend off. “It’ll be dawn soon, and that  _will_  kill him. We need to get going.”

“An organ?” Sam questioned, looking at Buffy with confusion. Sam thought it sounded more like something that would happen in a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon than real-life, even in Sunnydale.

“Long story. We need to get you to the hospital and Spike indoors,” Buffy replied as she started wrapping Spike back up in the quilt, swallowing back the bile that surged insistently at the back of her throat.

Sam shook her head, looking down at herself, assessing the damage. “I’m okay,” she assured Buffy, drawing a dubious look from the Slayer.

“But your arms! You’re bleeding,” Sam noticed for the first time, reaching out to grasp one of the Slayer’s arms and turn it over to examine the deep, ragged lacerations.

“I’ll live,” Buffy assured her as she pulled her arm away and finished tucking the quilt tightly around Spike. “But you need to get looked at. Some of those cuts are pretty deep, you’ve lost a lot of blood, and your nose…” Buffy grimaced, looking at it. “It needs to be set or it’ll be all Wicked Witch of the West. Not really a great look.”

“Really, I’ve had worse,” Sam argued, touching a tentative finger to her bloodied nose. “You’re gonna need a trained medic to fix all that,” Sam pointed out, waving a hand at Spike. “I don’t think duct tape will do it.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Riley objected, sitting up as Dawn and Willow rose off him. “Spike doesn’t need your help. He’s a  _vampire_!”

Sam looked at her husband with a mixture of pity and impatience washing over her battered face. “The world isn’t black and white, Riley. We need to start seeing the shades of gray. Spike tracked down the eggs, he fought the demons right beside me, he saved my life,  _literally_. I owe him at least this much.”

Riley hmphed out an indignant breath as he tried to stand without bending his injured leg with little success. Dawn and Willow finally took mercy on him and helped him up to a standing position, handing him his crutch. 

“Well,  _I_ need a hospital, and from the looks of it, so do you, and we need to get this called in and get a clean-up crew here. So, you can stay with me and do your duty,  _soldier_ , or go with them and work on a  _soulless_   _vampire_. You choose,” Riley challenged resentfully.

Buffy huffed out a breath as she stood up, turning a cold, hard gaze on Riley. “Like I said, some things never change. Still giving ultimatums, huh, Finn? Everything has to be about you.  Just because your mom called you ‘Sunshine,’ it doesn’t make you the center of the universe, ya know.”

“He saved my life, Ri,” Sam interjected as Buffy helped her back to her feet, steadying the soldier a moment until she was able to get her balance. Sam winced and wrapped a protective arm around her middle, but continued talking to her husband earnestly, “Surely you can at least give him that much credit. And those two little geeks – he had me get them out. Where are they?” she asked, looking toward her Humvee. “I handcuffed them to the bumper.”

The group all looked that direction, but the two evil ‘masterminds’ were nowhere to be seen.

“They’re slippery little freakazoids,” Buffy admitted, frowning.

Riley turned his gaze back to his wife, glaring at her a moment through his burning, blood-shot, watering eyes, then at Buffy, and shook his head. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with you … all of you,” he finished, including Willow and Dawn with a glance. “What part of ‘evil vampire’ do you not understand? Anything he did was purely selfish. Spike always has an ulterior motive, an angle, something up his sleeve.”

“Like what?” Sam wondered, indignantly, standing up straighter but still keeping an arm pressed against her ravaged stomach. “Did you  _see_  him? What ulterior motive could possibly be worth that?”

“To get your sympathy,” Riley shot back. “And it worked!”

“Oh, right. Let’s see,” Dawn interjected, holding both palms face up in front of her as if weighing the options. “Get my guts torn out,  _literally_ , and half my body eaten by tribbles,” she weighed on one hand. “Get sympathy from a complete stranger,” she weighed on the other hand. Dawn dropped her hands and glared at Riley. “Yeah, totally worth it,” she agreed acerbically, rolling her eyes as only a Summers girl could.

“Forget it, Dawn,” Buffy advised, shaking her head in dismay. “Not worth wasting your breath.”

The Slayer picked up her dropped, goo-covered sword from the lawn and handed the hilt to Dawn, who scrunched up her face and took it with just two fingers, holding it as far away from her body as humanly possible. Buffy then squatted down and picked Spike up as carefully as she could, trying not to do more damage than there already was. She began to turn away and start for the truck, but stopped short and turned back to face Riley Finn. Tears shimmered in her eyes, but her gaze was fierce, locking with the soldier’s and holding it as she spoke.

“You know what this evil, selfish vampire has  _never once_  told me, Riley? That if I don’t give him all my love, all my attention, if I don’t share  _everything_  with him, if I don’t  _need_   _him_  more, that he’ll stop caring about me, that he’ll leave. He’s never once suggested I was too strong, or too independent, or too … too  _anything_! NEVER. ONCE. Hell, I couldn’t get him to leave if I wanted to. And believe me, I’ve tried.”

Riley huffed out a put-upon sigh, shaking his head. “Buffy, that’s not what I—”

“Don’t even,” Buffy interrupted him, turning again to leave.

Sam put a hand lightly on Buffy’s arm, stopping her. “Ri’s right about one thing: we do need to call this in and get a clean-up crew here,” the brunette admitted apologetically, looking back at the open basement door. “We don’t want any civilians stumbling on that scene. And we need to make sure they’re all dead. But I’ll be right behind you, maybe just a couple of hours or so, and I promise I’ll help Spike.”

“Go with your husband, Sam, do your  _duty_. He certainly needs you more than Spike does. Spike will eventually heal. As far as I can tell, trying to get Riley Finn to see shades of gray is like trying to teach a rock to float.”

“Buffy,” Riley began pleadingly, as if she didn’t understand him at all, but she was already walking away.

“Get the keys, Will,” Buffy called back, heading for Riley’s Humvee.

“I still have them!” Willow replied, holding them up as she and Dawn, still carrying the sword like it was a dirty-bomb, followed quickly. “I think my driving was improving, don’t you? I definitely won’t hit anymore trees,” Willow predicted confidently. “Curbs ... eh,” she shrugged, tilting one hand back and forth in a ‘maybe/maybe not’ gesture.

“I’ll be happy if you don’t crash it into my house,” Buffy assured her, waiting by the back of the Humvee for someone to open it for her so she could lay Spike down in the ‘way-back’ of the huge truck.

“Then you are in for a happy night,” Willow assured her friend with a smile, trying to lighten the mood, as she opened the back of the truck for her.

Buffy laid Spike down as gently as possible and climbed in after him. She grasped his shoulders and slid him carefully forward until he was completely inside, letting Willow close the back door behind them.

“Happy,” the Slayer repeated after Willow in a small voice, collapsing her gore-covered body down next to Spike’s unmoving one, as tears filled her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Spike. This is my fault. I should’ve been there, I should’ve …” Buffy’s voice cracked, her words dying on her lips, and her tears spilled over, washing salty streaks through the blue-grey gore on her face.

Feeling the need to touch him, to somehow assure herself that he was really still Spike, she laid a hand gently atop his head, the only place that seemed relatively uninjured. He looked like he’d spent the last hours in a slaughterhouse, and he was the slaughter-ee. She couldn’t imagine what would’ve been left of him if he’d lost the fight, and she didn’t want to.  

“Why did you go in there without me? You stubborn fucking vampire. You should’ve waited.”

Buffy sighed then, knowing that if he had waited, it almost certainly would've been even worse. Guilt and shame for not being able to help him, not being there to fight with him, washed over her in a sickening wave. She pressed her forehead against his quilt-wrapped, motionless shoulder, her tears turning into sobs as the Humvee rumbled to life and began to move.

“I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned no one getting killed on our date. That was like challenging fate to a duel,” she confessed through her tears.

“I’m horrible at duels with fate. I’m like ‘0’ for nine hundred and thirty-six … nine hundred and thirty-seven counting tonight.

“I’m so sorry, Spike. Please forgive me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How in the world is Spike going to heal from this? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are beyond amazing -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	17. Hazmat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy, Dawn, and Willow make it home with Spike.

* * *

 

Buffy didn’t stir when the soothing, rumbling purr of the big truck’s engine died. She felt bone-tired, even though she really hadn’t done that much physically in the last few hours. It was a tiredness borne from hopelessness and despair and having no idea how she’d get through the next few hours, let alone the next few days or weeks.

Would Spike really be able to recover from this? It seemed incomprehensible, but he had come back from some bad injuries before, as Willow had so helpfully pointed out. Still … huge chunks of muscle were missing from his thighs, his calves, and his arms. His intestines were currently living outside his body due to a huge hole in his abdomen large enough for Buffy’s head to fit into. And the toes on one foot, along with part of the foot, were just gone. How could anyone, even a vampire, come back from this?

The back door of the Humvee opened, and Dawn’s tentative voice came to her through her grief and worry. “He’ll be okay, Buffy. He will.”

Buffy sniffed back her tears and wiped her face, only then remembering that she was still covered in the oozing blue-grey blood of the demons.

“I’m not so sure about Riley’s truck though,” Dawn added, putting a hand over her nose and mouth as the stench wafted out.

She and Willow had kept the windows open while they drove, sticking their noses into the fresh air to breathe. Now that they had stopped, the odor just hung there, an overpowering, olfactory demon in the small space.

Buffy snorted softly and pushed herself up to a sitting position. “Riley’s got his head so far up his ass, I doubt he’d notice,” she muttered, trying to find something clean to wipe her face on, but failing.

Dawn gave her sister a sad smile. “I think he did love you once,” the brunette offered sympathetically.

Buffy shook her head slowly. “He loved the _idea_ of me. He loved that I was strong, but he resented it at the same time. He loved the idea of a bright, shiny Slayer, the Chosen One, always fighting on the side of good,” Buffy corrected, meeting Dawn’s eyes.  “The reality was a bit more … tarnished.”

Dawn dropped her gaze and fiddled with a chrome cargo-hook on the black floor of the truck bed. “What tarnished you? Was it Angel?” she asked finally, looking back up.

Buffy smiled sadly and shook her head slowly, her eyes focused somewhere in the past. After a few moments she looked back at Dawn, who was still standing behind the truck. “Life. Living,” Buffy answered, finally, giving a small shrug. “Slayers aren’t supposed to live long enough to tarnish.”

Dawn nodded solemnly. “Well, I think Spike loves you, tarnish, warts, and all,” she pointed out.

Buffy cocked a brow at her sister. “I don’t go around kissing toads. I don’t have any warts,” she refuted vehemently. “I am wart-less. Ask anybody.”

Dawn’s lips curved in a genuine smile. “No, you just go around kissing vampires who were probably Abercrombie models in a previous life. What do you catch from that?”

“Good fashion sense,” Buffy advised her sister haughtily, as she began to slide out of the truck on her butt, leaving a trail of reeking ooze in her wake, like a giant, smelly snail.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Willow met Buffy at the front door of the house, holding her hands up and stopping the Slayer from entering with her fragile cargo.

“Strip,” the witch ordered in no uncertain terms.

“Strip what?” Buffy asked, confused.

“Strip you! ‘Stink’ doesn’t begin to describe it. You smell like a sewer puked all over you, and then dunked you in a vat of dead eels.”

“Dead eels?” Buffy questioned, looking down at her dripping clothes.

“Dead eels,” Willow confirmed. “Now, strip.”

“On the porch?” Buffy asked, looking around the front of the house.

“You’re not coming in the house tracking that goo all over and stinking it up. Strip,” Willow instructed again.

Buffy huffed out an indignant breath but didn’t move.

“Think about how much it will cost to get the carpets cleaned,” Willow prodded, raising her brows at her friend knowingly.

Buffy frowned at that and rolled her eyes. She walked over and laid Spike – she refused to think of her bundle as _Spike’s body_ , but that’s what it felt like – down on the swing. Unburdened, she started to strip out of her clothes, kicking her boots off, tugging at her socks, then trying to wriggle out of her goo-soaked jeans with moderate success. Willow held out a large plastic garbage bag and, as each garment was removed, she had Buffy drop it into the bag.

“What are you gonna do with my clothes?” Buffy asked, finally getting her jeans free.

“I’m thinking of the industrial hazmat waste site outside of town,” the witch replied, keeping her face turned away from the stench.

Buffy frowned. “Damn it, I liked those boots,” she complained. “Maybe they could be cleaned?”

Willow turned to face her friend and gave her a dubious look.  “Dead eels and sewer puke,” she reminded her.

Buffy sighed heavily. “I guess not,” she acquiesced, pulling her shirt off over her head. “Maybe I can write it off on my taxes,” she mused to herself as she dropped the grimy clothing into the bag.

She was left in just her underclothes, which were stinky, but not technically dripping with anything nasty. 

“Here, now wrap Spike in this,” Willow directed, handing Buffy a plastic drop cloth that had been left over from one of the numerous repair jobs the Summers’ house had endured over the years.

Buffy sighed and did her best to cover the stinking, gore-soaked burrito that was Spike in the plastic, at least enough to keep any of it from dripping on the carpet.

“Okay now? Can we go in?” Buffy asked, holding her arms out to encompass herself and Spike. She’d stopped bleeding, but the lacerations on her forearms were deep and nasty looking and caked with a mixture of red and blue-grey blood. The sight made Willow quail a bit, but she remained resolute. 

“What’s that?” Willow asked, eyeing the bandage still on Buffy’s wrist.

Buffy looked down at it and her face flushed crimson beneath the splatters of gore. “Oh, ummm … It’s nothing,” she stammered, turning to pick Spike back up.

“It’s super stinky,” Willow pointed out.

“Right,” Buffy agreed. Facing away from her friend, she unwound the bandage quickly, tossing it into the proffered garbage bag. She swiftly slid her arms under Spike’s quilt-wrapped body before anyone could see what was beneath the wrapping.

“Okay? Can I go up now?” Buffy asked, turning to face Willow with the lifeless bundle of vampire in her arms.

Willow nodded. “Be careful not to touch the walls with that … I mean, _him_ ,” she warned. “I’ll bring you another hazmat bag for his stuff once you get in the bathroom.”

Buffy nodded and let out a small sigh before heading into the house and up the stairs. It was kind of like déjà vu in reverse. Hadn’t it just been a few minutes ago that Spike had carried her down these same steps, just like this?

No, it had been a lifetime ago.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

In the upstairs bath, Buffy laid Spike out on the tile floor, reaching over him to turn on the water in the tub as hot as she could stand it.

“Do you want me to help you?” Willow asked, coming in behind her with another plastic garbage bag.

Buffy shook her head slowly, suddenly feeling guilty again. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them back quickly. “No, I can manage. Maybe … can you see if you can get some human blood for him? I don’t think pig’s blood is going to be enough. I think Willy sells it, he pays people to be donors.”

Willow nodded, stepping back out of the door. “Yeah, sure. One keg of O positive, coming up,” she assured Buffy, closing the door with a soft ‘click’.

“Willow! Wait!” Buffy called, and the door opened again. “His duster … I can’t throw it away. He’d kill me, for real.” _‘If he ever recovers_ ,’ her mind added unhelpfully.

“But…” Willow began to object.

Knowing her objection, Buffy explained, “There’s a girl – a demon, I mean – she does his laundry. She’s a soap demon or something. He always meets her at Willy’s. Take it to her, if anyone can get it cleaned and repaired, it will be her. Her name’s … ummm …” Buffy pounded the palm of her hand on her forehead, trying to think, then looked up in triumph. “Ariel!”

Willow looked unconvinced but nodded. “Ariel, the little mermaid soap demon. Sounds reasonable,” she muttered, waiting.

Buffy carefully unwrapped Spike from his plastic and quilt burrito. She tried to avert her eyes from the intestines that writhed and twisted every time she moved him, like a slippery, glistening tangle of snakes. She heard Willow heave and choke back bile behind her, and Buffy instructed the witch to get another plastic bag and just wait in the hall a minute. Willow did, without argument.

Getting his duster off was incredibly hard. It was stuck to his raw and ravaged body, covered in three types of dried or drying blood: demon, vampire, and human, which made it stiff and unyielding while, at the same time, slippery in places and hard to grip firmly. There were numerous rips and tears in it too, but Buffy thought they could be repaired, or at least hoped so, if she could just get it off him.

It was like trying to push a rope uphill. His body was limp, like a ragdoll, and the coat was molded to his shape, rigid with the dried blood and gore. Buffy pulled and tugged, trying to be gentle, but it barely moved. Tears of frustration burned her eyes and she must’ve started cursing or screaming because suddenly Dawn and Willow were there on the floor next to her. They were talking, cooing with soothing words that had no meaning to her, and helping her get the duster off the lifeless body of her vampire lover.

Finally, it pulled free with a squelch of re-opening half-closed wounds where the coat had stuck to his gashed and lacerated flesh. All the girls flopped back onto their asses on the tile floor as it came free. Their butts made an audible ‘splat’ when they landed on the tile. A thin puddle of the reeking gore now covered the bathroom floor, having been spread around from wrestling with Spike and the duster.

There was a moment of stunned silence, as if disbelieving that they’d actually done it, then they all started moaning and groaning out ‘ewww’ sounds, with Dawn muttering, “So gross,” under their breath as they looked down at the mess.

“I think we need more hazmat bags,” Willow observed, looking at Dawn, and then down at her own clothes. “And some Lysol to bathe in.”

Buffy wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry as she sat there, once again nearly completely covered in the sewage-stench of demon viscera. Her nerves were frayed, her emotions were tattered, her arms and hand stung and throbbed where the demon had taken chunks out, and she felt like her sanity was slowly but surely unraveling.

The joy from the small victory of getting Spike’s duster off was counter-balanced by the sight of his mangled, lifeless body. At once tears welled in her eyes, and a sobbing, hysterical laugh rippled from her throat, both emotions fighting for dominance.

She wished Spike would wake up and make some kind of lewd remark, leer at her sitting there in just her underwear, or say something sarcastic – she desperately just wanted him here with her. But, at the same time, she worried terribly that he would wake up in the middle of this and feel the agony of his massive injuries. She’d never heard of a vampire dusting just from pain or shock, but she wasn’t entirely sure it was out of the realm of possibilities.

Buffy felt torn in two. She felt lost and afraid. She felt guilty and angry. She felt a thousand other emotions, all boiling up at once, raging inside her demanding release. Perhaps worst of all, she felt _helpless_.

Holding onto Spike’s ravaged duster, she laughed and sobbed simultaneously and hysterically, teetering on the edge of a complete and utter meltdown. Her knotted, overwrought emotions flooded out via any possible path – tears, laughter, screams, curses, it didn’t matter – simply needing to escape the too-small confines of her soul.

In the next moment, Willow and Dawn were doing the same as they all sat splattered with the gory mess. All the tension of the night was suddenly released from the three girls like the popping of a too-full balloon. It felt like a tsunami of overwhelming emotion washing over them, cleansing the strain and pressure from their hearts and bodies so they could simply breathe again, function again, and keep going.

The last, to keep going, being the hardest part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How in the world is Spike going to heal from this? And what's going to happen between Sam and Riley? The 'Slap Riley' queue is around the block and down the street now, are you in it?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are beyond amazing -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> More to come soon!


	18. Abby-Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy gets Spike cleaned up … now what?
> 
> Note: Thanks so much to Kathleen, pfeifferpack, for the insight on the basic difference between Sam and Riley and their motivations, which Buffy discovers in this chapter. I just had to put it in! It was so perfect, Kathleen!

* * *

 

Buffy sat in a chair next to her bed, leaning forward, resting her head on her folded arms on the edge of the mattress, her eyes closed. Though it was midday, the room was dark, the windows covered with heavy blankets to keep the sun out. The only illumination was the glow that trickled in around the edges of the window coverings. She was clean, she had scrubbed every inch of her body three times, but she could still smell the stench from the dead demons in the back of her nose. She wondered if it would ever go away.

Spike lay in the bed in front of her, also clean, at least as clean as she could get him. After getting his duster and clothes off, she’d used tweezers to remove all the shards of tribble teeth from his face, neck, and hands. There had been forty-seven of them – yes, she’d counted – small, jagged, and razor sharp. She hoped she’d gotten them all. Some had been imbedded deeply in Spike’s cheek where Riley had punched the vamp when the soldier had tried to wake him up out on the lawn. She got angry all over again at Finn as she worked to get those out of the vampire’s flesh. She worried about hurting Spike more, of him waking up in the middle of it, but he hadn’t. 

Buffy had then filled and emptied the tub five times with Spike in it, doing it until the water stayed clean. As she waited for the tub to fill each time, she’d cleaned up the bathroom, trying to get all the demonic sewer puke off the floor and where it had splattered on the walls. She’d mostly succeeded. Willow or Dawn would finish it for her, she was sure.

After that, she’d used soap and gently washed Spike, cleaning him up as well as humanly possible. She’d even rinsed off all the inside bits that were now outside; it took all her Slayer strength to keep her gorge down during that, but she’d done it. At the end, she let the shower rain down on him, rinsing away the soap and all of the stench of tribble blood – she hoped.

After getting him clean, she’d wrapped him up like a burrito again to hold everything in place, this time in a clean sheet, and brought him to her room. She’d settled him onto her bed, thinking it a shame he couldn’t see himself now. He’d be so smug, making snarky remarks about finally getting between her Egyptian cotton sheets. As much as it had annoyed her in the past, she missed his snark now that it was gone.

After she’d gotten him settled, a panic had risen in her as she’d looked down at him lying there with his head on her pillow. His hair! It was all wet and curly. Spike wouldn’t want people to see the curls. He’d promised to show _her_ , to let _her_ in, but not the world at large. She had suddenly felt an overwhelming and irrational need to brush them out, to mousse them into submission, to hide them, to keep them only for herself to see. And she had, at least as well as she could with him still unconscious. Finally, with his hair brushed, held straight beneath a thick layer of mousse and hair spray, that irrational, rising panic inside her had relinquished its hold on her chest.

He looked like Spike. Abused, bruised, broken, bleeding, scratched, mauled, completely thrashed, beaten, and battered, but Spike.

She had subsided into the chair then, the Slayer sitting vigil over a vampire, praying for him to heal, to wake up, to be okay. Her arms and hands hurt where she’d been attacked, but they weren’t bleeding, and she’d scrubbed all the demon-goo out of the lacerations. The demon’s talons had been sharp but jagged, and they’d ripped deeply into her flesh, but they were nothing compared to what Spike had endured. As much as she hurt, she knew that he had to hurt a thousand, _ten-thousand_ times worse. As much as she wished he would wake up, she prayed that he didn’t until he had healed enough to not be in constant agony. She wasn’t sure she could handle seeing him in that much pain.

There was a soft knock on the door and it opened without Buffy’s bidding. Sam entered the darkened room carrying a large khaki bag with a red cross on the side. The soldier flicked the light on as she entered, making Buffy blink against the sudden brightness.

“You came,” Buffy murmured, her voice rough from all her tears. She sat back in her chair, her eyes adjusting to the light, and took in the soldier’s appearance. Sam was also clean, her long brunette hair tied back in a tail, and she was dressed in fresh tactical gear – all black, of course. There were cuts, scrapes, bruises, and bites visible on her face, neck, and hands, and both eyes were blackened. Her broken nose had been set, as Buffy had suggested, and there was tape across it, Buffy supposed to help keep it in place until it healed. The soldier walked with a stiff limp and moved tentatively, alluding to her other injuries, but they couldn’t be seen.

“Are you okay?” Buffy asked, watching her cross the short distance to the bed with halting steps.

Sam gave her a smile that might’ve been hiding a grimace. “Better than I would’ve been if Spike hadn’t been there.”

“Still, I saw your injuries. You’ve got to be a seven-thousand on that one to ten pain scale they use at the hospital. I’m not sure even I would be walking around right now,” Buffy commented, studying the other woman closely.

Sam started to shrug, but cut it off abruptly, grimacing. “I told you, I’ve had worse. I wasn’t kidding. Plus, codeine: very helpful. Brings it down to a two-thousand easily.”

Buffy laughed softly. “Even with codeine, that’s impressive, like ‘The Black Knight’ impressive.”

“Oh, I …umm, thank you,” Sam stammered, feeling at once flattered and confused. “Is that something you’ve fought before?”

Buffy’s brows went up. “No. ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail?’” she prompted.

“‘Tis but a scratch! I’ve had worse,’” Buffy quoted in a terrible attempt at an English accent.

“Oh! Is there something in there about rabbits?” Sam wondered, remembering Spike’s comments before the Suvolte battle.

“Not rabbits, a killer bunny,” Buffy corrected.

Sam frowned, but it was hard to tell with all the swelling and bruises covering her face. “So … a black knight gets attacked by a killer bunny and gets a scratch? And that’s …impressive?”

Buffy laughed and shook her head. “Remind me to give you the video when you leave. Watch it. You’ll see. But trust me, you? I’m impressed.”

Sam swelled with pride. “Thanks, Buffy. That means a lot coming from you.

“But you thought I wouldn’t come?” the soldier asked, changing the subject as she looked down at the unconscious vampire.

Buffy shrugged. “Well, beyond the beating you took and the blood loss, I figured there would be more ultimatums. Riley’s not what you’d call ‘fond’ of Spike.”

Sam snorted softly, asking with a motion of her hand if she could remove the sheet wrapped around Spike’s body. Buffy nodded her assent. 

“There were,” Sam acknowledged, pulling the sheet off gently to expose the extent of the damage Spike had endured. “But I told you I’d come. I don’t say things I don’t mean. Spike saved my life. He helped keep all those Suvolte from escaping, which would’ve been devastating to the populace for miles around, if not the whole western seaboard. Not because he had to. Not because of the chip. As far as I can see, he did it because it was the right thing to do.”

“Spike can be an idiot sometimes,” Buffy agreed flatly, her eyes locked on the damaged vampire laying in front of her.

Sam’s smile turned more genuine, but she didn’t comment.

“Did you tell Riley all that?” Buffy wondered after a moment, looking up at the brunette.

Sam nodded. “I did.”

“I’ll bet that went over like a Sex Pistols concert in Vatican City.”

Sam’s smile widened. “Finn does seem to have a bit of a bias against Spike.”

Buffy huffed out a derisive breath. “That’s like saying a hydrogen bomb is a _little noisy_.”

Sam rolled her eyes and shrugged slightly in acknowledgement. “He’s usually zealous about his job, it’s one thing that drew me to him, but this is different,” Sam observed.

“This is personal,” Buffy interjected.

Sam shrugged again. “Yeah, but it’s more. I think… I think you take him out of his comfort zone,” the brunette explained. “And seeing you with Spike, well, it sort of rocketed him past uncomfortable to unnerving.”

“Riley’s comfortable killing demons,” Buffy offered, shrugging. “That’s his raison d'être.”

“Exactly,” the soldier agreed. “But you make him see more than black and white, good and evil. And that makes him uneasy. He gets lost in the grey area, like a ship lost in the fog with no lighthouse to guide him.”

“Too bad he didn’t stay lost,” Buffy muttered under her breath, looking away from Sam and back to Spike. If Riley hadn’t shot Spike, none of this would’ve happened. Buffy would’ve been there to fight at Spike’s side and he wouldn’t be mangled practically beyond recognition right now. She let out a low growl under her breath as she thought all that through, wishing Riley was here right now so she could beat him to a bloody pulp and shove that gun up his ass.

“Did you know there’s still a ‘Kill or Capture’ order out for Hostile 17?” Sam asked, pulling the Slayer from her dark thoughts.

Buffy looked up sharply then, her green eyes burning, her hands curling automatically into fists.

Sam held her hands up as if in surrender or placation. “Don’t worry. We aren’t going to do either, but that’s part of what makes Ri a little crazy. On one hand he has a duty to bring Spike in, on the other … there’s you and shades of grey.”

Buffy relaxed a fraction of an inch as Sam began looking in her medical bag, clearly trying to decide what she had that would best serve the purpose of trying to patch Spike up.

“Oh,” Sam said, pulling Buffy’s knife out of the bag. “This must be yours.” She handed Buffy the knife the Slayer had used on the demon that had knocked her down into the muck, sparkling clean and odor-free.

Buffy’s eyes widened as she took it, examining it for any trace of sewer puke. Finding none, she put it in the drawer of the bedside table.  “How …?” she began to ask.

“The cleaners … they’re really good – like a cross of Mr. Clean, Felix Unger, and Joan Crawford,” Sam explained as she turned and began looking through her bag again.

“That’s quite a threesome,” Buffy commented dryly, drawing a huff of laughter from Sam as she continued looking through her bag, considering options.

Buffy pursed her lips, watching the woman. The brunette was beat to shit, she was clearly in terrible pain, and she’d probably had to endure a huge fight with her husband just to come here, but she was here, trying to help a vampire. Buffy found it hard to reconcile Sam’s actions with her job, which, theoretically, was the same job Riley had: kill demons.

“How did you and Riley meet, anyway?” Buffy asked, trying to suss out this discrepancy in her mind.

“I was with the Peace Corps in Central America,” Sam explained, looking up from her bag and back to Buffy. “One night, my entire infirmary got slaughtered by... I didn't know what they were – things, monsters. It was … horrific, like nothing I’d ever seen. I got saved by these people … Black Ops. I was a mess … my whole life had been turned upside down, _again_.”

Sam sighed heavily, dropping her eyes away from Buffy’s, looking uncomfortable. “I … well, I had been through some stuff back home and I’d joined the Corps to get away from …umm, I mean, to start over, to rediscover my purpose in life. I just wanted to help people, to feel like I made a difference.

“That experience with those demons really spun my head, ya know?” she continued, looking back up at Buffy.  “I thought my great life reboot had failed miserably. I started feeling sorry for myself, berating myself as useless, worthless. But one night I just got angry about the whole thing and pulled myself out of my pity-party. I realized then that I had just been sent down a new road. I could still help people, I could still find a purpose for my life. I quit the Corps and joined the squad. My first firefight, I met Riley.”

“And he was what you needed then,” Buffy surmised. “Strong and solid and stable, full of confidence and purpose, with a corn-fed smile and really nice arms.”

Sam smiled then. “He does have pretty nice arms,” she agreed.

Buffy nodded her understanding. Wasn’t that a big part of what had first drawn her to Riley, too? Strong, solid, stable, and _normal_? Picnics in the daylight and talks of driving up the coast like regular people?

But she wasn’t a regular person. Turned out, neither was Riley, despite his really nice arms.

Buffy also realized why Sam was here, now, ministering to a vampire. She chose this life to help people, to save them from the things that go bump in the night, like she had been saved. Riley chose this life to kill demons; if people were helped in the process, fine, but that was not his main motivation.

Buffy sighed. “Can you help him?” she asked, changing the subject. “Spike, I mean. Riley’s un-help-able.”

The soldier took a deep breath as she studied the damage, and let it out slowly, not saying anything for a long time.

Buffy thought it sounded like she was deflating, giving up, and looked at her worriedly. “Sam?”

The medic nodded slowly. “I think so. I told you earlier, I’ve never worked on a vamp before, but from what you told me earlier about how he can heal…” She let her voice trail off and shrugged a little.

“The clean-up crew found these near the trunk I was in,” Sam continued, reaching into her bag and pulling out a small Ziploc baggie that had several small bones in it. “I think they’re his toes.”

Buffy’s face scrunched up, partly in revulsion, partly in amazement that they’d find such a small thing in that mess – Joan, Felix, and Mr. Clean made quite the OCD ménage à trois. But she wasn’t really sure how that would help Spike.

“We have some … well, we call it Silly-Putty, but it’s really advanced med-tech. Professor Walsh developed it back when … well, _you know_ ,” Sam explained, pulling out a sealed, foil package, about the size of an egg carton, from the bag. “It was formulated from various demon DNA for reattaching lost digits without surgery. It wasn’t really meant for damage as extensive as Spike’s foot, but, I was thinking since he’s a vampire, maybe it would help it regrow if I formed it into shape with the bones.”

Buffy’s eyes went to Spike’s ravaged foot, her brows raising with surprise and a touch of hope.

“I also brought some sheets of artificial skin – they use it on burn victims,” Sam continued.  “It functions like ‘scaffolding’ around which new skin cells can grow. I thought it would work on the larger perforations and gashes, to cover them while he heals and allow his body to use them to build new tissue. Will his body regenerate muscle tissue?”

Buffy shrugged. “I’m not sure,” she admitted, reaching a hand out to touch Spike’s. “I hope so.”

The red gash on Buffy’s wrist showed for a moment when she moved, and Sam caught sight of it. She reached out and turned Buffy’s wrist back over, revealing the healing bite. “Riley was right, Spike bit you.”

“Yeah, well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” Buffy retorted gruffly, pulling her arm away from the soldier.

“Why? How? I thought the chip didn’t allow something like that,” Sam wondered, not sounding judgmental, but just curious.

“I let him … I insisted, really. He was hurt. He couldn’t fight. I needed him whole to fight the demons with me. Slayer blood helps more than pig’s blood or regular people blood. And the chip doesn’t fire unless he’s intending harm,” Buffy explained accurately, if not completely truthfully. “Lot of good it did. It screwed me up so I couldn’t fight … this is my fault. It should’ve been me down there, not him,” she concluded, looking at the battered vampire.

“Finn said you acted like you were high or drunk,” Sam observed.

Buffy nodded. “Nothing seems to work quite the same since I came back. That’s never happened before.”

“You’ve been bitten before?” Sam asked as she began unpacking more supplies from her bag.

“Three times. It was never like that,” Buffy admitted, a pleasant shiver running down her spine in memory of the joining with Spike. ‘Joining’ was the only way she could describe what happened between them – it wasn’t taking or even giving, it was sharing. That had never happened before either. She’d learned more about him in those moments than she ever had before, and she was more convinced than ever that he had ‘come back wrong’, just like she had.

Sam had begun applying the layers of artificial skin over the worst of Spike’s injuries. The skin came in sheets which looked like clear plastic wrap on the top. The back of each sheet was a sticky mesh made of some sort of living tissue which adhered strongly to Spike’s wounds, covering them, protecting them, and providing a starting point for healing.

“Did he take too much? Hemorrhagic shock can cause confusion,” Sam wondered as she worked.

“I wasn’t _confused_. I was _stoned_ ,” Buffy retorted curtly. “And, no, he didn’t take too much. I doubt he even took a pint. Once the weirdness wore off, I was perfectly fine. I mean, I had a blinding hangover, but I wasn’t weak or shaky or anything. I’ve had too much taken before … this wasn’t the same.”

“How did you get him to stop at a pint? I’ve seen vampire attacks before and … well, I’m sure you know, they don’t stop without being dusty… or when the victim is dead,” Sam observed as she motioned for Buffy to help her turn Spike over so she could work on his back.

“I asked him to,” Buffy replied as she rose and helped the medic turn him gently. She was glad to see that the fake skin was strong enough to hold all of Spike’s insides inside, even when they turned him. He was, however, beginning to look more like a plastic-wrap mummy than a vampire, with so much of his body covered in the artificial skin.

“You asked him to,” Sam parroted back, a note of disbelief in her tone, looking up from her work.

Buffy shrugged and sat back down in her chair. “I asked him to stop. He stopped.”

“That’s far from the norm,” Sam observed.

Buffy rumbled out a short laugh. She dropped her head forward and ran both hands over her face and back through her short hair before looking back at the mummy-vampire on her bed. “Yeah, Spike’s what you might call a little abby-normal.”

“I sort of noticed that myself,” Sam acknowledged, still working on Spike. She’d opened the Silly-Putty and began molding it into the approximate size and shape of the missing part of Spike’s foot and toes. It was grey and looked just like plain, ole clay to Buffy, like the kind they’d used in elementary school to make ashtrays and spoon holders for their parents.

“He gave me advice on love,” Sam admitted as she worked, inserting the bones into the clay in what she hoped were their proper places. Some looked almost identical, so it was hard to know for sure, but she thought it should be okay.

Buffy’s mouth quirked into a genuine smile. “He’s been known to do that,” she agreed. “He’s like the Dr. Phil of the Hellmouth.”

Sam smiled. “I didn’t even know vampires _could_ love,” she continued as she set her masterpiece down on the bed and removed several small packs of what looked like wet-wipes from a pocket on the side of the foil package the clay had come in.

Buffy’s eyes settled on Spike’s hand and she took it in hers. “He can,” she whispered, stroking his mangled fingers gently.

Sam nodded thoughtfully and opened one of the wet-wipe packs. She began rubbing the clay model of Spike’s foot with the wet, disposable cloth. Buffy turned to watch her, curious. Sam opened another of the little packages and swabbed the end of Spike’s raw and ravaged foot with it.

“Germs won’t hurt him,” Buffy reminded the medic.

Sam shook her head. “This is activation serum,” she explained. “Watch.”

Buffy watched, fascinated.

With the clay model and Spike’s flesh both coated in the activation serum, Sam carefully lined the model up with the damaged end of his foot. As soon as the two touched, tendrils began shooting out of the clay, wrapping around Spike’s foot, pulling the two pieces – vampire flesh and demonic clay – together as if they were one.

The tendrils sunk into his skin, spreading out like the roots of a growing plant, imbedding themselves into their source of nutrients: Spike’s flesh. When it had stopped moving, the tangle of ‘roots’ covered all of Spike’s foot and part of his ankle, and the clay had changed color from dull grey to a smooth, porcelain white, just like Spike’s skin. The clay seemed to be pulsing, alive, already working its magic, trying to restore the missing pieces.

“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” Buffy remarked, looking up at Sam.

Sam gave her a smile and nodded. “I know the Initiative did a lot of … questionable things,” she admitted. “But they did do some good, too. Maybe …” she shrugged, looking down at Spike. “Maybe this is a little bit of restitution for the damage they did.”

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, still holding Spike’s hand gently in hers. She hoped this would work … all of this. She had no idea how long it would take for him to heal, but she’d be here, right here at his side, waiting until he did.

Sam looked down at their joined hands, and a soft shimmer of affection momentarily blurred her vision. “Spike said love is like jumping off the edge of the world and hoping someone is there to catch you, to keep your heart from smashing on the rocks,” she told Buffy.

Buffy considered that a moment, then pondered, “Are there rocks on the edge of the world? I would think, just, I don’t know … empty space. For that matter, isn’t the world roundish? Where is this edge that all the lovers fall off? Someone should really put up some yellow caution tape and a safety railing.”

Sam gave her a small smile and waited until Buffy finally looked up to meet her eyes before continuing. “He’s waiting for you to catch him.”

Tears welled in Buffy’s eyes for the hundredth time today and spilled down her cheeks. She bit her bottom lip and nodded slowly, looking back down, but said, very softly, “I don’t know if I can.”

Sam knelt down to the blonde’s level and put one of her battered hands over Buffy’s and Spike’s where they rested on the bed.

“Do you want to?”

Buffy closed her eyes and tried unsuccessfully to hold back her tears. She bit her bottom lip hard enough that she tasted blood in her mouth, the question swirling around in her damaged, battered, and exhausted soul. She was silent for a long while, her chest and throat constricted so much that she wasn’t sure she could even speak when the word finally formed deep in the dark recesses of her heart.

“Yes,” she rasped out, blinking her eyes open and looking at Sam through her tears.

“Then you can,” the soldier assured her. “Trust your heart – follow it, it won’t let you down.”

Buffy shook her head, her eyes clamping closed again against the flood of emotion. “My heart … it’s … just shattered … ruined … lost,” she stuttered out through her constricted throat.

“Let him heal it, Buffy,” Sam advised. “He wants to so badly. You didn’t hear how … how _fervent_ he was. Let him in. You can catch each other.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How will Spike heal from this? What can/will Buffy do to help him recover? Will her friends help or hinder her efforts? Did Spike ever model for Abercrombie? Was Buffy lying when she said she had no warts? Most of all, will the soap demon be able to clean and fix Spike's duster!!?? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! This was a short, transition-type chapter. We'll find out some of what will be done to help Spike next. I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her amazing talents with me. Her beta skillz are beyond excellent -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> More to come soon!


	19. Blood of My Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Dawn sit vigil over Spike.

* * *

 

The phone rang on the bedside table next to Buffy, but she didn’t make a move to get it. Someone else could pick it up.  She still sat next to Spike’s prone, motionless body, now almost completely covered in wrappings of artificial skin along with regular bandages which covered wounds that were small enough to be sutured closed. His right foot was encased in the demonic DNA Silly-Putty, which seemed to be growing out of the healthy flesh of his foot and ankle, attached with odd-looking, pulsing roots. Sam had assured her that it wasn’t painful, that they’d used it before to reattach Black Ops soldiers’ fingers that had gotten sliced off; the patient she’d used it on said it just tingled a bit.

Buffy had placed a folded sheet discreetly over her patient’s hips, leaving the rest of his body exposed to the air, which Sam thought might help promote healing.

The soldier had also bandaged up a few of Buffy’s deeper wounds, pulling them closed with butterfly bandages and superglue. And Sam had scoffed earlier at Buffy’s duct tape as a medical device. _Hmph_.

Sam was gone, but had been able to insert a feeding tube running up into Spike’s nose, and then down his throat to his stomach. A bag of human blood from Willy’s hung on a hook next to him, slowly dripping sustenance into him.  Someone had brought Buffy a tray of food, too, but it sat untouched on the floor next to her chair.

Buffy had tried to get Spike to feed from her, but to no avail. She’d pricked her finger and dripped Slayer blood into his mouth, coating his lips and tongue, but he never stirred, the demon never rose.

Although Buffy was certain it wasn’t more than a pint, she wasn’t entirely sure how much blood Spike had taken from her just the night before. Therefore, Buffy had Sam draw just a few vials from her and she’d added it to the first unit of blood he’d been given. Sam had also mixed a large ration of her awesome pain meds into the blood and left more for later. Sam wasn’t sure they would help a vampire, but Buffy agreed it couldn’t hurt.

So far, none of that had been enough to wake him from his coma. Buffy was extremely conflicted about that. She wanted so badly for him to wake up and tell her he would be okay, but at the same time she didn’t want him suffering unduly. She knew it was selfish to want him back, awake and talking, but she couldn’t help it. She did. Desperately.

A knock on the door made Buffy look up just as Willow stuck her head in. “Sorry, did I interrupt your staring into nothingness?”

“I was just about at my quota, anyway,” Buffy replied, rubbing at her tired, swollen eyes.

“The Doublemeat Palace is on the phone, they said you were supposed to be at work ten minutes ago,” the witch conveyed.

Buffy sighed. “Tell them I’m sick; I’ll be in for my shift tomorrow.”

Willow nodded, giving her friend a sympathetic look. “Don’t overdo the nothingness stare. You should break it up with self-recriminations and flagellations,” she advised. “Take it from the voice of experience.”

Buffy nodded and gave the witch a tired smile. “I’ll be sure to schedule that in to my calendar.”

Willow smiled back sadly before retreating and closing the door, leaving Buffy alone again.

Within just a few moments, another knock came on the door, and Buffy’s ire ignited as if gasoline were poured on a fire. “I can’t stomach Doublemeat today, Will! Tell them to deal with it or fire me! I don’t care which!”

Dawn’s head poked in and she opened the door a little wider. “Ummm … not Willow, but I can call them back if you want.”

Buffy closed her eyes and shook her head, taking a deep breath to calm down. “Sorry. No … I still need that stupid job. I just can’t take that smell today. I’ll puke into the secret ingredient,” she confessed.

Buffy felt a shudder go down her spine at the thought. “Not that anyone would notice,” she added confidentially.

Dawn gave the attempt at what she hoped was levity a brief smile, then turned her attention to the stricken vampire.

“Any change?” the brunette asked, walking up to the bed and looking down at Spike, who looked more like a corpse than some corpses she’d seen.

“No,” Buffy answered morosely.

Dawn reached out a tentative hand and touched a spot on his left foot that was undamaged. He felt like a corpse, too: cold, flaccid, lifeless; so un-Spike-like. Even the sarcasm seemed to have leached from his body.

The girl bit her bottom lip and pulled her other hand out from behind her back, presenting Buffy with a bag of blood.

“He hasn’t finished the one he’s got,” Buffy pointed out, looking at the bag of O-Neg hanging next to the bed, which was still half-full.

“This is mine, freshly sucked from my tender veins,” Dawn informed her.

Buffy gave her an alarmed look, and Dawn added quickly, “By a phlebotomist at the blood bank and a needle, not an actual sucky vampire.”

Buffy let out a breath and rolled her eyes, relaxing a bit before Dawn explained, “I thought … maybe … well, Sam said you already gave as much as you could for a while. Glory seemed to think there was something special about my blood, and you closed the portal with your blood, so I thought, maybe … well, maybe my blood would be like yours,” she rambled. “I thought maybe it would help more than the stuff from Willy’s.”

Buffy blinked back grateful tears and nodded, reaching for the bag of freshly-drawn mystical Key blood.

“You’re pretty smart for a kid,” Buffy acknowledged, unhooking the regular blood from the tube and hooking up Dawn’s.

“Can I get that in writing?” Dawn kidded, making Buffy smile.

“Plausible deniability is built around never putting anything in writing and leaving no credible witnesses alive. Lucky you’re not credible, or I’d have to kill you,” Buffy informed her lightly, sitting back down, her eyes locked on Spike as Dawn’s blood began to flow down the tube.

Dawn pulled a stool out from under Buffy’s makeup table and sat down next to her sister. “Where did you learn that? Slayer School?”

“Tenth grade, Principles of US Government,” Buffy replied, giving her sister a sidelong glance and a quick smile, before turning back to watch Spike.

Dawn chuckled as she, also, turned to watch Spike for a few silent moments. “So …” Dawn began tentatively. “Are you gonna, you know, try to find Dru? You know, to heal Spike?”

Buffy’s frown returned, deepening the worry lines on her face. “I don’t even know where to start to look for Dru … and I think that DuLac book that had the ceremony in it got burned up in the church, anyway,” Buffy admitted. “Even if we had the book, that decoder dagger thing is long gone. The only one who might remember the ceremony is Spike … and he can’t come to the phone right now.”

Buffy had thought about that already – thought about the ceremony that Spike had done to heal Dru using her sire, Angel, so long ago. But even if Buffy knew the ceremony and could find Dru, she wasn’t sure Spike would want her to do it.  Despite everything, Buffy was sure Spike would not want Dru sacrificed for him … not even a little bit. Now, if it was a matter of sacrificing Angel, that would be a different story … but not Dru.

Dawn nodded solemnly. “What about Willow and Tara?” she suggested next.

Buffy shook her head. “I seriously hope neither of them knows any of the ceremonies in that book. DuLac was not fluffy bunnies and unicorns.”

“No,” Dawn corrected her. “I mean, just a healing spell of some kind. Not the dark, deadly sire-can-heal-me thing.”

Buffy shrugged. “Willow and magic are unmixy right now, you know that better than anyone. I don’t even want to ask her; it’s not fair to her. Tara …” Buffy sighed heavily, considering. “Yeah, maybe … I’ll ask her to see what she can find.”

Dawn nodded then sat chewing her bottom lip for several long moments before venturing tentatively, “So … you and Spike are a _thing_? Like … an actual _two-way_ serious thing? Like with Angel?”

Buffy cringed a little but just gave a small shrug in reply.

“I wondered, cos, after Glory beat and tortured him, we just dropped him back in his crypt and left him – we didn’t bring him home or get him any blood or anything,” Dawn reminded her.

“He wasn’t in a coma from that,” Buffy pointed out.

Dawn shrugged. “He wasn’t too much better off. And you didn’t answer my original question. Stop being evasive-girl.”

Buffy remained silent, staring at Spike’s mangled body, but not really seeing it.  There were so many reasons this being an ‘actual two-way serious thing’ would be a mountain of wrong – the Everest of wrongness. She knew that in some part of her brain, but at the moment she was having a hard time remembering what those reasons were.

What she did remember were the moments when this supposedly soulless, evil creature acted with compassion and humanity toward her, her sister, her mother, and even her friends who abused and despised him. She remembered his promise, “ _Till the end of the world,_ ” and how he’d continued to keep it, even now.  She remembered, “ _Hundred forty-seven days yesterday_.” She remembered the look in his eyes when he asked, “ _How long was it for you_?”

Buffy’s throat tightened, and she swallowed hard. Even then he knew, or at least suspected, where she’d been, and what coming back would be like for her. He knew why her hands were bleeding and broken, because he’d experienced it himself at one time.

He hadn’t been involved in her resurrection. Although they’d not talked about it, she was sure he wouldn’t have allowed it, regardless of his feelings. He wouldn’t have put her through this, through fighting the darkness, but he would help her now, of that she was certain. If he recovered.

And she remembered what she’d seen when he’d fed from her – when they’d joined. There had been evil there, darkness darker than anything she’d ever seen – and it had tried to pull her under, to keep her for its own. But there had been light, as well, and, with nurturing, she knew that light could grow. There was no doubt in her mind.

Then Sam’s words from earlier that day came back to her when Buffy had admitted how shattered her heart was. “ _Let him heal it, Buffy. He wants to so badly. You didn’t hear how … how emotional he was. Let him in. You can catch each other_.”

Buffy felt tears slide down her cheeks and drip from her chin. She swiped at them with her sleeve and sniffed, blinking the flood back.

“Not like Angel,” Buffy admitted finally, her voice a hoarse, heartrending whisper.

She turned shimmering eyes to look at Dawn, who had been watching with uneasy trepidation as her sister struggled to answer the question, fearing the answer on behalf of Spike. Dawn looked heartbroken, tears welling in her own eyes as she flicked a glance at the vampire’s lifeless form, hoping he hadn’t heard Buffy.

“It’s … I think it’s an ‘actual _two-way_ serious thing’, but not like Angel,” Buffy clarified, seeing her sister’s distress. Buffy swiped at tears spilling slowly from her own sunken, worried eyes before explaining, “Spike won’t give up. He won’t leave. He won’t hurt us. He’s not Angel.”

Dawn felt a weight lift off her shoulders, and gave her sister a tender smile, nodding slowly. The brunette leaned over and hugged Buffy tightly, relief washing over her in waves. The gesture was returned gratefully. The Slayer’s tears began to fall in earnest as the two held each other, sitting vigil beside the broken vampire who would sacrifice anything for them.

“Spike loves you, Buffy,” Dawn whispered against her sister’s shoulder. “He really does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not crying, you're crying! 
> 
> Will what Sam did help? What do you think of her? Can Spike recover? What more can, or will, Buffy do to help Spike heal?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her superpowers with me. Her beta skillz are beyond amazing -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!


	20. Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander pays a visit.

* * *

 

The room around her was dark when Buffy heard muffled voices coming from downstairs. _Xander_. She could tell that he was demanding to know what was going on and where Buffy was; Willow seemed to be trying to stop him from coming upstairs. The Slayer sighed heavily, rubbing at her swollen, reddened eyes, and stood up, stretching her aching, stiff body.  She wasn’t sure she’d ever actually sat that long at a single stretch ever. Even when they’d gone to the all-day / all-night monster movie marathon that one Halloween, she’d gotten up for popcorn, Twizzlers, and Coke refills. 

Just as she was starting for the door to the room, it burst open. Xander’s form filled the doorway, blocking most of the light that spilled in from the hallway. Still, she blinked against it, her eyes having grown used to the gloomy darkness she’d been sitting in.

“Buff! What’s going on? Riley was at the Magic Box getting some supplies and he said Spike was up to his old tricks again!”

Xander flipped on the light, making Buffy shade her eyes against the sudden brightness.

Buffy cleared her throat roughly, scowling at her friend, her arms automatically crossing over her chest in annoyance as she squinted against the light.  Her ire rose and she came fully awake in an instant, her desire to shove Finn’s gun up his ass so far that it shot out his nose redoubling.

“ _Old tricks_?” she repeated derisively, making no attempt to conceal her agitation. “Oh … you mean getting torn limb from limb and having his guts literally ripped out while trying to stop a nest of sewer-puke demons so they didn’t escape and lay waste to this stupid town … oh, and save Finn’s wife in the process?

“I’m sorry, I apparently missed that ‘old trick’ in Spike’s repertoire. I must’ve been sick that day,” she growled sarcastically.

“I … uh … huh?” Xander stammered, looking from her to Spike’s motionless, mummy-wrapped form on the bed and then back again. “Why is Spike _in your bed_?!” he demanded, wide-eyed and horrified.

“Because I put him there,” Buffy answered logically. “Just what old trick does Finn think Spike is up to?” she wondered as Xander stepped further into the room.

“He … ummm … _Jesus_ ,” Xander swore, looking back down at Spike, the big man’s brows furrowed in confusion and revulsion.

Buffy stepped back a little to give Xander the full view of Spike’s battered, bruised body. Most of the horror of it was tempered by the bandages and the fact that he was cleaned up, but Spike’s face was swollen and blackened so badly that he was barely recognizable as Spike. Even his razor-sharp cheekbones were no where to be seen, hidden beneath swollen, black and purple mottled flesh which was crisscrossed with bright red slashes.

Xander looked back at Buffy then, confusion warring with the original look of indignation on his features.

“Spike,” Xander stuttered, wide-eyed. “In the bed of Buff. On the sheets where Buffy … where you … uh ... sleep and … and _… stuff_. He’s getting his filthy, evil vampire stench all over them.”

Buffy sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. _Miss the point much?_ she wondered silently. “There is no stench,” she assured him. “He smells kinda … spicy and tangy and earthy. A little bit like oak whiskey barrels and hot wings, with a little hint of Irish Spring underneath.”

Xander’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “You … smelled him?”

Buffy huffed out an impatient laugh. “Among other things, yes.”

“I am not hearing this. This is a nightmare, right? I’ll wake up and … and it’ll be a funny – a crazy funny nightmare,” Xander droned. “I’ll tell you about it and you’ll get grossed out and hit me and tell me I shouldn’t eat beans and Spam before bed.”

“I’m sure Anya would prefer that,” Buffy sighed. “Focus, Xander. What the hell did Finn say about Spike?”

Xander blinked, recalled to his original mission here. “Oh, ummm … he … he said that Spike was in cahoots with Warren and Jonathan and that other one. He said Spike and The Trio were dealing in some kind of black-market demon eggs and he led Finn’s wife right into a deadly trap.

“Finn said it was supposed to be you – that Spike was trying to kill you, bag his third Slayer – but you couldn’t go cos you were … drunk? He thought Spike had bitten you.”

Buffy huffed out a derisive breath. “I guess it totally slipped Spike’s mind to get out of the trap before it sprung,” she surmised, rolling her eyes, ignoring the part about getting bitten.

“Well, Spike isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed,” Xander offered, but even he sounded a little unsure.

“Well, he must really be a dull tool – like a potato or a pillow or something – cos he totally forgot to kill Sam, too … protected her, actually – saved her, if you must know.”

“Maybe … maybe he just saved her by accident,” Xander suggested. “See above re: the unsharp state of Spike’s brain.”

“Xander, are you even listening to yourself? Spike can be impatient, he can be hotheaded – I’ll even go as far as rash, but Spike is not stupid.” Buffy arched a brow at him and Xander deflated a bit, his righteous indignation fading slightly.

“So, what do you think happened?” he asked then.

Buffy sighed heavily and began to recount what Sam had told her about the night, from getting the information from the demon at Willy’s to confronting the two little nerds, to finding the improperly stored eggs, and the subsequent battle – defeating the Suvolte and saving the girl.

“So, you’re saying … Spike’s a …” Xander choked a bit, swallowing back a little vomit that had risen into his mouth, “… _hero_?”

Buffy shrugged. “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck… or, you know, a hero,” she pointed out, arching another brow at him.

“But … but … you weren’t there the whole time,” Xander tried to argue.

“Fine. I’m just telling you what Riley’s wife said and what I saw when I got there. Ask her if you don’t believe me.”

“I … she … wasn’t with Finn,” Xander admitted. “I haven’t met her yet.”

“Of course she wasn’t, because she was probably here patching up Spike. Does that sound like she thought he’d tricked her into an ambush? Come on, Xander … even you aren’t that gullible,” Buffy asserted.

Xander scowled at her. “You don’t know that! I’m perfectly capable of being gulled! I am a gully! Plus, we’re talking about Spike here! You remember him? Bypassed the chip? Tortured Warren!

“He was working with The Trio – those jewels they stole, remember? It makes perfect sense that he’d be in on the eggs, too!” Xander insisted.

“He wasn’t working with them! I told you before, he was helping me stop them! Plus, in what world does it make sense for him to sacrifice himself to stop these demons and save Sam if he was working with those nerds? The Topsy-Turvy Cuckoo Clock World?” Buffy wondered. “If he was in on it, he wouldn’t have taken her there in the first place! Geez! What is wrong with you? Have you been hit on the head too many times?”

Xander opened his mouth to answer, looking down at Spike, really taking in all the bandages and bruises and cuts for the first time.

Buffy waited and watched her friend’s face contort through a myriad of emotions, confusion and denial seemed most pronounced. Once in a while Xander scratched his head, apparently trying to get his brain to work. His face would clear a moment, as if some rational explanation for Spike’s behavior would occur to him, but then it would fade again back into perplexity and dismay.

“Well?” she asked after a couple of minutes.

Xander shook his head. “I … there’s something not computing here.”

“Maybe your brain is missing a transistor or something … or some of the wires got fried,” Buffy suggested.

“Ha. Ha,” the big man replied flatly, still shaking his head in confusion. “Spike is … _Spike_!” he asserted confidently, as if that explained everything.

“And I am Buffy. And you are Xander,” she added helpfully. “Now that we have that sorted out, I guess that solves it!”

“You know what I mean,” Xander argued. “It’s Spike! Spike is not a …” he choked again on the word, “… _hero_. He’s a vampire! He’s a soulless monster! They literally make monster movies about things like him!”

“Well, you’ve got me there, Xan,” Buffy agreed, rubbing at her eyes again. She was exhausted and arguing with Xander was like ramming her head into a brick wall. She’d have more luck arguing with the wall, for that matter.

“Tell you what,” Buffy suggested, taking Xander’s arm and turning him back toward the door. “You go home and ponder this some more and let me know what you come up with later … like … oh, I don’t know, in ten or twenty … years? I’ll just be here waiting.”

“But … it’s Spike,” he said again a bit dazedly, walking with her toward the door.

“That’s a very good start. Now say, ‘Spike’s a hero,’” Buffy suggested as she got him into the hallway.

Xander choked again. “I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.”

“Keep practicing, you’ll get the hang of it,” Buffy advised with false brightness before turning back into the bedroom and closing the door behind herself, leaving Xander in the hallway. She leaned on the door and closed her eyes. There was a headache forming right between her eyebrows – a Xander headache if ever she’d felt one. It was shockingly similar to the ones he used to give her when she’d been with Angel, only worse.

“But … wait, I still don’t get why is Spike in your bed!” the brunette called through the door.

“He won’t be unconscious and immobile forever. Ask Anya to explain it to you, Xan – she probably has some visual aids that will help you get it,” Buffy snarked back, still annoyed, rubbing at her forehead, utterly exasperated and exhausted.

“Buffy, you can’t be serious! You … he … it’s Spi—” The name was cut off as Xander retched and she heard his heavy footsteps racing for the bathroom.

Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, but the corners of her mouth quirked up in a small, wry smile.

That wasn’t so bad. Why had she thought telling her friends about her and Spike would be so hard? A few fried braincells, blown transistors, and lost lunches, and then everything would be fine. Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you!
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are beyond amazing - any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> More to come soon!


	21. I Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Dawn continue their vigil over Spike.

* * *

 

A while after Xander left, Dawn had come back up to sit with Buffy. She brought the Slayer some dinner, but Buffy only picked at it despondently. She just wasn’t hungry. Her stomach felt like a den of giant centipedes had taken up residence and food only made them squirm and writhe more. She needed to do something! Anything! Sitting and waiting was not her strong suit. She needed something to hit or some cure to track down, but she didn’t know where to begin tracking or who to hit, other than Riley Finn.

She knew that, even though it might make her feel better to break Riley’s other arm and leg, it wouldn’t really solve anything, and it would likely piss off Sam, who Spike may still need. Buffy could feel the coiled tension building up inside again, fueled by worry and guilt and more than a little anger. Sitting here waiting was just making that spring wind tighter and tighter inside, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave Spike’s side.

She’d called Tara earlier and told her the situation. The white witch said she’d see what healing spells she could find. The more powerful the better, Buffy had requested, and Tara agreed. For now, that was all Buffy knew to do.

Buffy wasn’t sure how long she and Dawn sat there, but the sun had been down a very long time. The golden glow that had shown in around edges of the blankets on the windows that day had faded to inky black. The room was nearly dark, just the lights from the various electronics provided a soft, green, artificial luminosity. Buffy guessed it was nearing dawn, but she was too tired to look at the clock to verify it. Both girls were exhausted, their eyes drooping, their reserves spent as they waited for any sign of life from the vampire.

Dawn yawned in the darkness, stretching her arms overhead and trying to wake herself back up. She wanted to be here for her sister and for Spike, to help any way she could. She wasn’t certain if sitting here for hours on end was helping, but she didn’t know what else to do, either.

Buffy was just about to tell Dawn that she should go get some sleep when something moved in the darkness.

Both girls jerked fully awake, immediately alert, sitting up in their seats, eyes wide.

“Did you see that?” Buffy asked.

“I think so. What did you see?”

“I’m not sure. But, I think something moved on the bed,” Buffy replied.

“Is there anything on the bed except Spike?” Dawn wondered, trying to force her eyes to see better in the dim light.

“There’s not supposed to be,” Buffy hedged – you never know on the Hellmouth. She reached over to turn on the bedside lamp to make sure.

The small lamp was almost blinding after the nearly-full darkness, and both girls blinked against it, getting their eyes to adjust.

“There! Look!” Dawn exclaimed, pointing at Spike’s right hand, which lay across his bandaged stomach. “Was that up there before?”

Buffy shook her head, not remembering for certain how Sam had left it after she’d bandaged him up earlier. It seemed like hours ago, and for good reason! It was _hours and hours_ ago!

They both sat like statues in their chairs, their eyes locked on Spike’s bruised, ripped and swollen hand, waiting. They were afraid to blink or breathe for fear of missing something, praying for any sign of life.

Then, just when they both thought it had been their imagination, his fingers twitched. A barely-there movement that might’ve been unconscious and simply reflexive. They didn’t care, it was _something_.

They both squealed with joy at the sight of it. Buffy grabbed Spike’s other hand, the one nearest her, and squeezed it, then let go, hoping to get a squeeze back like she’d seen in movies and on TV.

It worked! His fingers curled around her hand, slowly, gently, but they moved.

She nearly exploded with relief and joy and a thousand other emotions all held captive inside. She’d kept them fairly well in check, only cracking once or twice since waking from her horrific dream of Spike, which seemed a lifetime ago. Little did she know at that time, that she’d be plunged into a waking nightmare that was even worse.

Right now though, the only emotion she felt was hope, and she clung to it like a life raft on a churning sea.

“Spike! Spike! Can you hear me? Are you awake?” Buffy asked eagerly, standing up and leaning over very near his head, still holding his hand tightly in both of hers.

An unintelligible mumble came from his parched lips. Both girls looked at each other in excitement and uncertainty, but simultaneous head shakes indicated that neither had understood him.

“Get some water!” Buffy instructed Dawn.

Dawn grabbed a glass from the tray of food Buffy hadn’t eaten and thrust it toward her sister. Buffy dipped her fingers into it and dribbled some water into Spike’s mouth, gently rubbing the dampness across his lips.

His throat bobbed, swallowing, and both girls laughed with giddy joy.

“Spike, I’m here, what is it? What can I do?” Buffy asked, leaning even closer and putting her ear next to his lips, still holding his hand in one of hers.

Spike’s tongue touched his lips numbly, trying to get more of the dampness into his dry mouth, but with little effect.

“Here … I have more,” Buffy offered, dipping the fingers of her free hand into the water again and dribbling more onto his tongue.

Spike licked his lips and swallowed once more, moistening his tongue and throat.

Buffy repeated the procedure several times before Spike was able to force any sound through his blood-clogged throat.

“Ow.” It was barely audible but enunciated slowly and succinctly.

“Ow?” Buffy echoed. “You’re hurting! I know … Spike, I’m sorry…the tribbles.”

“Ow.”

“There’s codeine in the blood…”

“Ow.”

“I don’t know what else to give…”

“Ow.”

“…you for the pain.”

“Breaking m’ hand.”

“OH! GOD! I’m sorry!” Buffy cried, releasing his hand immediately and letting it fall to the mattress next to him. “I’m so sorry!” she repeated, stroking his fingers tentatively, as if they might bite her or simply fall off.

“Nice going! Break more of him,” Dawn admonished her sister tersely, moving around to the other side of the bed. “Spike, are you okay?”

“That’s a ridiculous question! Of course he’s not okay!” Buffy rebuked her sister.

“Can I get you anything? Do anything?” Buffy asked him, looking at his bruised and battered face. She wished he’d open his eyes, but doubted he even could, they were so swollen and blackened.

“Bollocks,” he rasped, his lips barely moving, half-choking on the dried blood which had clotted in his swollen windpipe. The feeding tube that snaked down into his stomach wasn’t helping with air flow, either.

“I’m sorry … God, Spike. We put pain killers in the blood—”

Spike shook his head negatively in very short and jerky motions, and then gingerly moved his right arm down from his stomach toward his crotch.

“Dangly bits,” he clarified, barely audible.

“OH! _Your_ bollocks and bits!” Buffy realized. “They’re fine! They’re good! Well, better than good, really, exceptional, I’d say. The demons didn’t eat them, despite their yumminess,” Buffy rambled, until she caught a raised eyebrow from her sister, stopping her short. 

“Ummm, I mean, they’re still there being all dangly,” the Slayer finished, turning pink.

Spike seemed to let out a sigh, his whole body relaxing fractionally.

“Y'know,” Dawn put in, reaching her hand out toward the sheet covering the bits in question. “It never hurts to get a second opinion.  I'd better check, too.”

Buffy slapped her sister’s hand away before she’d gotten within a foot of the sheet. “I’m perfectly capable of being the dangly bits inspector. They’re fine,” she assured her sister with a glare.

Dawn hmphed and rolled her eyes. “You get all the fun jobs.”

“When you’re Slayer, I’ll let you have all the fun that is my life, until then, hands off,” Buffy retorted, narrowing her eyes at Dawn.

“W-w-whiskey,” Spike gasped out next, ignoring or not hearing the spat between the sisters.

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” Dawn put in, still giving her sister a stifling glare. “There’s no nutrition in whiskey, plus, there’s codeine in the blood. You aren’t supposed to mix pain killers with alcohol,” she advised sagely. “You should have protein to help you heal. How about a protein shake? With fresh fruit and peanut butter. Wouldn’t that be better? Definitely healthier.”

To Buffy’s surprise, Spike did manage to open one eye. It was barely a slit, but it was enough to show the unmitigated contempt for Dawn’s suggestion in the glare that shot daggers at the younger Summers girl like a blue laser beam.

“I’ll get you some whiskey,” Buffy promised, touching a hand lightly on his shoulder. Then, to Dawn, “Go get some whiskey!”

“Where am I supposed to get whiskey?” Dawn wondered obstinately.

“The store?” Buffy suggested tersely.

“It’s five in the morning!” Dawn pointed out.

“There’s a twenty-four-hour package store a block down from the Bronze,” Buffy reminded her.

“My fake id hasn’t arrived in the mail yet,” the younger Summers informed her sister, crossing her arms over her chest in defiance.

“Get Willow and go get some damn whiskey! Now!” Buffy ordered her.

“Hmph!” Dawn grunted, stomping a foot. “Why do I have to go? Why don’t you go? You want to get it for him so much!”

“Because. I. Said. So,” Buffy gritted out between clenched teeth.

“This hell?” Spike wondered groggily from between the two arguing girls, his voice as rough and dry as a gravel road in August. “Is, innit?”

“Yes, Spike, you’ve died and gone to your own personal hell where there is no whiskey and all the Summers women do is stand over you and argue about it for all eternity. I’m sure Mom will be here any minute to make the experience complete,” Buffy snarked, glaring pointedly at Dawn the whole time.

“Fine,” Dawn acquiesced tersely, turning on her heel and heading for the door. “But I’m putting protein powder in it,” she added as a final rebuke before slamming the door behind her.

Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes, but as soon as the door closed, her full attention was back on Spike.

“Here, maybe a little more water will help until the whiskey gets here,” she offered, retrieving an ice cube from the glass of water and touching it to his lips.

“Cold,” Spike muttered as the ice melted, trickling chilly water into his mouth and down his throat.

“I know, I’m sorry. But this is what they gave Mom when she was in the hospital, so it must be good for you,” Buffy assured him.

Spike shook his head slightly and lifted one hand up jerkily, touching his plastic-wrapped chest and stomach in turn. “Cold,” he repeated a little stronger as the melting ice helped clear his throat and rehydrate his tongue and lips.

“Oh!” Buffy exclaimed. “Here, suck on this and I’ll get a blanket,” she instructed him, letting the rest of the ice cube slip into his mouth. “And shut up.”

Spike grunted a wordless objection or perhaps a question but managed to hold the ice cube between his tongue and the roof of his mouth as it melted and trickled down his throat.

“Don’t give me that,” Buffy retorted, grabbing a thick comforter that had been hastily tossed on the floor. “I can hear all the lewd remarks swirling around in your warped little brain, so just shut up and suck it.”

Buffy thought he laughed then. It wasn’t much, barely a blubbered snigger, but another flood of relief washed over her at the sound. He was in there, somewhere under all the bandages and wrapping, under the scrapes and bites and bruises, he was there. And he would come back to her.

She tossed the comforter over him, tucking it in very gingerly around his feet and pulling it up under his chin.

“Is that better?” she asked, watching him worriedly.

“Cold,” he repeated, the ice cube gone, painfully lifting a hand out from under the cover toward her.

Buffy took his hand and kicked her shoes off hurriedly before crawling into the bed and under the cover with him. She pressed herself against his side as gently as possible, trying to help warm him with her body heat. Spike slid a hand beneath her shirt, touching the warm flesh of her stomach, and moaned a wordless appeal.

“Cold,” he repeated yet again, pushing clumsily at her shirt, trying to reach more of the warm flesh beneath.

Buffy slid away from him for a few moments, pulling her shirt off hastily and wriggling out of her jeans, kicking them off the bed and onto the floor. As quickly, but gently, as she could, she slipped back under the cover and sidled up against him, her warm flesh pressed against his cold, ravaged body.

“Is this okay? Is it better? I’m not hurting you, am I?” she asked, snuggling against him tightly. She heard Spike sigh as he slid one hand up onto her hip, slipping his fingers beneath the lacy strap of her panties, using the elastic to hold it in place against her warm, tender skin without any effort on his part.

The two lay in silence, eyes closed, warm against cold, soft against hard, as Buffy’s body-heat warmed the covers, the bed, and Spike. Buffy touched a soft kiss against his shoulder and whispered, “I’m sorry,” into the damp spot left by her lips. She rested her forehead against the spot and let out a long, slow sigh of relief, holding back her tears, and telling herself that he’d be okay, everything would be okay.

Then something occurred to her, hitting her like a flash from the dark.

“Hey! Since when do you get cold?” she demanded indignantly, lifting up on one elbow so she could see his battered face.

The barest hint of a smile quirked the corners of his mouth.

“Since now,” he breathed softly, forcing one eye open enough that she could see the salacious gleam in it.

“You’re a jerk, you know that, right?” she reprimanded him. “You’re a pervert and a sex fiend and I think you went and got yourself nearly killed just so you could get into my bed! That’s just the kind of half-witted plan you’d come up with! Save the girl! Save Sunnydale! Get eaten by tribbles! Just for this!”   

“Cute when yer mad,” Spike rasped out, the smile widening fractionally, only because it would hurt too much to smile much wider.

“I’m not cute! And I’m not mad. I’m … I’m … I’m furious!” Buffy retorted, flinging the cover to the side and jumping up out of the bed. “Why would you do that? Why would you go in there and fight all those sewer-puke demons without me?”

Spike started to say something but was cut off before anything could come out.

“Because you’re an idiot! That’s why!” she answered for him, pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed in nothing but her bra and panties, the slight chill in the air completely forgotten. “Did you _want_ to get yourself killed? Do you have some kind of death wish, you bastard!? You PROMISED me – until the end of the world! Do you remember that?”

That spring that had been coiled up in her belly had finally snapped, sending her into a tailspin of clashing emotions – fear and anger, hopelessness and helplessness, guilt and remorse, frustration and heartache.  The relief of having him awake and ‘still Spike’ was simply overwhelmed with all the feelings she’d kept pent-up over the last hours, and they crashed over her in a tidal-wave, sending her spiraling out of control.

It was painful for Spike to try and follow her agitated pacing with his one, barely-open eye, but he was afraid to close it. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her quite this angry with him, and that was saying a _lot_.

Once again, Spike opened his mouth to reply to her question, but was cut off by Buffy’s angry rant.

“I remember! You said you wouldn’t leave! You said you’d help me fight the darkness! You said … you said you were different, that you understood! Everyone leaves me – Dad, Angel, Mom, Giles, even fucking Riley left me! – but you … I tried for years to get rid of you, but would you go? Nooooo! You stayed. You just kept niggling your way under my skin. You keep telling me that you love me, but just when I let you in, the first thing you do is go try to get yourself killed!

“If you were gonna jump on the ‘Ditch Buffy Bandwagon’, then I wish you would’ve done it before I … before I fell …”

The ‘L-word’ stuck in her throat, unable to escape past all the high, thick walls she’d built around it, and her rant languished. Silence hung heavy in the room around them for several moments, a palpable, almost electric, tension.  Tears of grief and anger and fear streamed down Buffy’s crimson face, her chest heaving with breath that didn’t seem to reach all the way into her lungs.

As she struggled to find words – or _the_ word to complete her tirade –  all her pent-up fear, anger, frustration, and guilt continued to boil inside. It churned and roiled in the Slayer like a cauldron of plutonium, hovering on the verge of a nuclear explosion. 

“Buf—” Spike began softly, trying to diffuse the bomb, breaking the silent tension.

It had been a mistake.

She cut him off with a screech that sounded more like a wounded animal than anything a human could produce.

“ _You_ _promised, Spike_!” she wailed at him, her tone bitter, resentful, and full of blatant accusation.

Suddenly Buffy shrieked again, a wordless wail of frustration, anger, and heartache, and flung herself atop his prone, battered body. Her hips straddled him, pinning him to the bed, as if he could escape otherwise. She began punching blindly around his face and shoulders, overwrought with emotion, but with little actual power. She hit the pillow and bed beneath him more than her target, and even the ones that struck flesh were glancing blows, inflicting little damage, although still abundantly painful atop his already abused countenance.

Almost as suddenly as her rage had bloomed, her temper guttered and faded into hysterical weeping. Spike managed to grasp her wrists with his battered hands and completely stop her feeble assault then, pulling her down atop him with no resistance. He carefully wrapped his bandaged, lacerated, and bruised arms around her as she sobbed uncontrollably against his shoulder, draining the last of her pent-up emotions out in rivers of salty despair.

“Why? Why? Why?” she repeated morosely, her voice barely audible as she cried against him, her tears falling like shattered glass against his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs and grief.

“I’m sorry, Buffy,” Spike rasped out against her ear, the bit of water having cleared most of the obstructions in his throat. “Gettin’ killed wasn’t the plan, pet. Take more than a few tribbles t’ keep me away from you. Spike keeps his promises, yeah?”

“You’re an idiot,” Buffy choked out between her sobs.

“Reckon so,” Spike agreed, trying to soothe her.

“You didn’t have to get half-eaten by tribbles. I was gonna ask you if you wanted to spend the night here after the movie,” she revealed, half-choked on tears.

“Were ya, then? ’Preciate that, luv,” he whispered, his heart swelling with joy in his battered chest, chasing away all the pain of her weight atop him that the codeine hadn’t muted.

“But I never want to see your entrails on my bathroom floor again.”

“Can’t blame ya fer that, pet.”

“They clash with the tile,” she explained.

“Can’t ‘ave that, can we?”

“You saved Sam.”

“Did I, then?”

“She thinks you’re a big, fat hero,” she spat, sounding more like a recalcitrant six-year-old than the Slayer.

“Does she? What d’ you think, luv?”

“I think you’re an idiot and you’re _not_ forgiven.”

“That’s fair, then,” Spike assured her, patting one of his bruised and battered hands down on her back gently.

“Riley still hates you,” Buffy revealed.

“Feelin’s still mutual.”

“He’s a jerk,” she admitted. “And I’m cold,” she added as a shiver shook her body.

“Me too, pet,” Spike agreed, reaching over to retrieve the discarded comforter, grimacing with pain and pulling it clumsily toward them, trying to get her covered.

Buffy saw his struggle and sat up, sniffing and swiping her tears away, even as they continued to stream from her eyes. She grabbed the cover from his battered hand, and unfurled it above them like a parachute, letting it float down like a cloud, enveloping them in its soft warmth.

“Better?” Spike asked as she snuggled back down atop him, her warmth already returning beneath the down comforter.

She nodded against his shoulder, letting her body relax atop his as he wrapped his battered arms loosely around her once more.

“Please, _please_ don’t do that again,” Buffy beseeched him, her voice soft and forlorn.

“I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spike’s awake!! Now, if Buffy can stop beating him up, maybe he can heal.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are beyond the pale -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	22. Who the Hell is Susie?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dawn returns with the whiskey, as requested!

Song Reference: [Wake Up Little Susie, by the Everly Brothers.](https://youtu.be/FZvDReUkuHc)

* * *

 

“Okay, you sent two people to get whiskey who don’t know anything about whiskey. Therefore, we got Scotch Whiskey from Scotland, Tennessee Whiskey from – wait for it! – _Tennessee_ , and Blended Whiskey from … neither of those places,” Dawn announced after entering Buffy’s bedroom with only a perfunctory knock, fully expecting to find Buffy sitting in her chair next to the bed where she’d been for hours. “Pick your poison.”

Buffy and Spike both jerked awake at the intrusion. Spike grimaced and cursed in pain as Buffy sat bolt-upright from her position straddling his hips, jerking free from his arms which were draped over her, and letting the comforter that had been covering them fall away.

“Oh my God! What are you doing? NO! STOP! Don’t answer that!” Dawn exclaimed, nearly concussing herself with one of the bottles she and Willow had just procured as she raised a hand impulsively to cover her eyes.

“Extreme TMI! I’ll never be able to un-see this!” she cried, turning her back on the two nearly-nude people in the bed. “That image is gonna be seared into my retinas for life, like watching an eclipse without those weird glasses.”

“I was just warming him up!” Buffy objected, wrapping the comforter around herself as she tried to gently, but quickly, get off Spike.

“I can _see_ that!” Dawn retorted. “ _That’s_ the problem! I _saw_ it! Can you hit me over the head with something very heavy and induce amnesia now?”

“We weren’t _doing_ anything!” Buffy defended. “He’s half-dead ... I mean _more_ dead, like deader than normal, he couldn’t do anything right now if he—” Buffy’s gaze was drawn unconsciously to the tent pole beneath the increasingly immodest sheet that covered Spike’s hips, and her eyes went wide.

Spike shrugged helplessly. What did she expect _him_ to do about it? His naughty bits had a mind of their own. They couldn’t be expected to just ignore her when she was laying right on top of them, no matter how trashed and battered he was.

“I mean … he’s hurt – and he was cold, and then I was cold, so we were cold together and then I got warm and he got warm, and next thing you know it’s ‘Wake Up Little Susie’!” Buffy rambled, tossing the comforter back over him hastily while glaring daggers at him.

“Who the hell is Susie? You had a ménage à trois? Here?! Now!?” Dawn demanded, appalled, turning her head back slightly to glance at her sister with wide eyes.  “Oh, my God, I’m so gonna need therapy … or some of this whiskey.”

“No!” Buffy exclaimed. “Gah! There was no trois! There was no _dos_! We weren’t _doing anything_!” Buffy repeated, throwing her hands up in frustration before bending and gathering up her jeans and shirt from the floor.

“Deux,” Spike interjected, correcting her.

“What?” Buffy demanded, standing up abruptly and giving him a confused look.

“Dos is Spanish; deux is French,” he explained reasonably.

Buffy rolled her eyes and tossed her hands up. “Whatever! There was no ménage-ing! We weren’t doing anything! We just fell asleep!”

“In the nude. On top of Spike. I’m not ten, Buffy!” Dawn argued, frowning. “At least you could’ve locked the door! Or, you know, barricaded it with a Sherman tank.”

“I’m not nude! I’m … undressed,” the Slayer argued feebly, pulling her clothes back on quickly.

Dawn snorted. “Riiight,” she agreed, drawing the word out sarcastically. “Completely different things.”

Buffy scowled at Dawn’s back. “What is it with everyone just barging into my room, anyway!? It’s your own stupid fault!”

“You sent me for the whiskey – I was just doing what you said! I didn’t think you were playing ‘naughty nurse’ in here … just, you know, regular nurse!” Dawn defended.

“There was no naughty anything here! Gah!” Buffy exclaimed in frustration.

For his part, Spike simply seemed bemused by the whole scene, lifting one bruised and battered arm and tucking it behind his head to raise up a bit for a better view. The swelling had started to diminish around his eyes and nose, possibly due to the Key blood dripping into him, possibly due to all the blood in his body suddenly taking a southbound train. Now both blue orbs leered out at Buffy in amusement as she scrabbled back into her shirt and jeans.

“Start with the Scotch, then, Nibblet,” he told Dawn, his lips curved into a small but lascivious grin. “Won’t warm me up as much as a naughty nurse _trois_ with yer sister and Susie, but reckon it will ‘ave to do … for now.”

“Please stop talking about trois and deux! You are damaging me permanently! And, again I ask: who the hell is Susie?” Dawn demanded, still facing the door.

“You brought it up, pet,” Spike reminded her. “And don’t think I won’t be expectin’ an explanation of how you know what a ménage à trois even is.”

“I read,” Dawn explained practically. “It’s one of the side-effects of making me go to school, which makes everything I know the fault of the authority figures in my life.”

“Remind me t’ start censoring what you read,” Spike put in.

“That’s against my constitutional rights and I’m firmly against it. If you didn’t want me to read trashy romances, you should’ve kept me locked in the basement all this time,” Dawn advised, finally realizing it was safe to turn around when Buffy snatched the bottle of Scotch from her hand.

“Now there’s a brilliant plan. We’ll start t’morrow, shall we?” Spike suggested.

Dawn huffed derisively, crossing her arms over her chest and stepping forward to glare down at him. “If I’d known you were gonna go all Annie Wilkes on me, I wouldn’t have given you my super-special, miraculous Key blood.”

Spike tilted his head, gazing at her, an expression of wonderment and gratitude washing over his battered face. “You did that fer me, eh?”

Dawn stuck out her bottom lip in a pout, rolling her eyes away from him, still huffy, but she nodded with one short bob of her head.

“Well, reckon we can forgo the basement if you’ll take this hosepipe outta my nose, then.”

“It’s not a hosepipe, it’s a _tube_ ,” Dawn corrected him, looking back at him finally, and unfolding her arms. Moving another step forward, she reached for the little clamp that stopped the flow of blood, pressing it closed so it wouldn’t leak.

“That like being nude versus undressed, then, is it?” he wondered, grinning wider – it was getting less painful.

Dawn smiled and nodded. “Yeah, kinda like that,” she agreed, relief welling up inside her and shimmering in her eyes. The snark, the sarcasm, the irreverence was back. Spike was gonna be okay. Her friend, her protector, her rock – the one person she could _always_ count on, who _never_ left her – was going to be okay.

* * *

 

Song referenced: [Wake Up Little Susie, by the Everly Brothers](https://youtu.be/jb2mZ41QJl8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buffy might want to get a Sherman Tank to blockade her door!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are beyond amazing -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	23. Till the End of the World, Redux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy has a nice chat with Riley. Spike and Buffy vow to keep what could be a dangerous secret.

Later that day, Buffy waited across the street from the motel where Riley and Sam were staying, watching their room. Finally, Sam emerged and headed for her Humvee, leaving Riley’s parked beside it. As Mrs. Finn rumbled out of the parking lot in her house on wheels, Buffy crossed the street and knocked on the door.

“Did you forget your key?” Riley called from inside.

“Yeah,” Buffy replied, coughing slightly and muffling her voice, trying to sound at least a little like Sam. Buffy could hear Riley struggling to rise and then hobble on his painful knee over to the door.

“Where did you last see—” he started to ask as he swung the door open. His words stopped in mid-sentence, his eyes going wide with surprise when he saw Buffy instead of his wife.

“We need to talk,” Buffy informed the stunned soldier, pushing past him into the room.

Riley stumbled, but caught himself on the open door. A grunt of pain fell from his lips as his bad leg took more weight than it could stand.

“Why are you feeding Xander lies about Spike?” she asked as she whirled around to face him, ignoring his struggle to regain his balance and his grunts of pain.

“What are you talking about?” he asked through gritted teeth, standing in his army-green boxers and a t-shirt in the open doorway, leaning heavily against the door, his injured arm still strapped against his chest.

“I’m talking about telling Xander that Spike is trying to kill me, that he was in on that whole egg thing with the nerds! That he led Sam into a trap!” Buffy explained impatiently. “You know very well that’s all bullshit!”

“I don’t know that and neither do you!” Riley contended as he began to hobble back to a chair to get off his mangled knee.

“Are you delusional?” Buffy demanded, utterly exasperated.

“Are _you_?” Finn retorted, sitting down gingerly, a grimace of pain washing over his face. “Have you forgotten who Spike is? William the Bloody? A member in good standing of The Scourge of Europe! Yeah, he’s chipped, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still dangerous.”

“Oh. My. God!” Buffy spat out. “Yes! You’re right! He’s dangerous! And, guess what? He hasn’t tried to kill me or my friends, not even once – I can prove it because – _ta-da!_ – I’m still here, and so are they.

“You know what _isn’t_ still here? Suvolte spawn!” Buffy reminded him adamantly.

Riley shook his head either in disagreement or dismay. “He just hasn’t gotten lucky yet.”

“Are you even listening to yourself?” Buffy wondered, getting more and more frustrated. “What are you, one of those conspiracy theorists?  Did they film the moon landing on a Hollywood set? Was there more than one person on that grassy knoll? Is Hitler still living in South America cloning himself?”

Riley snorted and rolled his eyes, shifting his leg to a slightly less painful position. “I’m a _realist_ ,” he contended. “I don’t know where Hitler may be, but Spike is right here, and he’s just as evil.”

Buffy sighed and looked at him with a mixture of contempt and pity. “What happened to you, Riley?”

“Me? What happened to _you_? You let him feed off you!” Riley accused.

“Well, I guess you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Buffy spat back. “’Pot, kettle, black’ much?”

“That was different!” Finn insisted.

“Oh, well, you’re right about that! He’s not some random vampire whore in a filthy brothel that I pay to feed off me for a freaking rush! He’s a goddamned warrior who needed his strength restored because _you shot him!_ You remember that part, right? You and your stupid gun!?”

“I did my job! Which, if you’d been doing yours, I wouldn’t have had to do!” Finn shot back. “It’s clear that he’s got you in some kind of thrall! What other possible reason could there be for the way you’re acting?”  

“Oh! Please! Don’t be ridiculous!” Buffy argued.

“I remember Dracula,” Riley reminded her.

“So do I, and Spike is not Dracula! There is no freaking thrall! You just can’t accept the fact that he’s changed. He’s actually fighting the darkness, becoming a better man, while you’re just getting pulled down deeper into the muck,” Buffy contended. “Spike’s a hero!”

Riley snorted loudly and derisively.

“You don’t believe me?” Buffy continued. “Fine. What about your wife!? I suppose she’s under a thrall, too?”

Riley opened his mouth to speak and she could tell it was going to be another one of his sanctimonious diatribes and she’d heard enough. Buffy cut him off with a slash of her hand through the air.  “I should’ve known this was useless,” she grumbled more to herself than him.

“When are you leaving my town?” she asked him then, crossing her arms over her chest impatiently.

Riley waved his good hand at his mangled knee and shoulder. “We’re on medical leave. Thanks to you, I have to do rehab on my knee; thanks to Spike, Sam has to recover from being shredded by Suvolte spawn. We’ve been ordered to stay here until we’re cleared … a month maybe.”

“Thanks to Spike, Sam is _able_ to recover rather than being shipped back home in little pieces!” Buffy pointed out.  

“Or, maybe …” Riley began.

“OR MAYBE NOTHING!” Buffy screamed at him, cutting him off, flinging her arms out in agitation. “You listen to me and you listen good!” she demanded, jabbing her index finger at him angrily.  “You need to keep all your little delusional theories and remarks about me and Spike to yourself. Stop feeding Xander on your bullshit – he’s like a big, ugly tofu mushroom. He just sucks it all up until his brain explodes and he starts leaking your sewage from his mouth.

“You are not to come to my house. You are not to go to Spike’s crypt. You are not to bother Spike in any way, form, or fashion. If you see him, you are to turn around and walk the fuck away. This is my town. Keep your gun holstered. You are not to kill any demons without my express, written permission.

“Got all that, _soldier_?” she finished, planting her hands on her hips and glaring daggers at him.

“Sir, yes sir,” Riley replied sarcastically.

Buffy closed the short distance between them and clamped her hand down hard on his dislocated shoulder as she leaned in very close to his ear. “I. Am. Not. Kidding. I will shove your gun up your ass and pull it out your nose if you so much as sneeze in Spike’s direction.”

Riley grunted, his face contorting in pain. “O.K,” he gasped out. “Okay … _fine_ ,” he panted when she released him.

Buffy’s hands curled in fists, her body fairly vibrating with fury, urging her to drive her point home by bludgeoning the soldier into one massive purple bruise.  Buffy took a deep breath and forced her hands to relax, to uncurl and she worked hard to unclench her jaw.

She skewered him with a searing scowl as he rubbed at his shoulder and tried to get his breath back. She reminded herself that he was a human and she was in no immediate danger. She didn’t slay or hurt humans, certainly not humans that were just sitting there groaning in pain. That wasn’t what she been given her strength and power for. In fact, just the opposite! She was the thing that protected humans, that stood between them and the darkness. The few times she’d thought she’d seriously hurt a human had been some of the most shameful and heart-wrenching times of her life. It just wasn’t done! It was … _wrong_.

“Fuck it,” she growled, drawing her fist back and slamming it forward toward Riley’s jaw.

Riley’s head snapped to the side and a grunt of surprised pain exploded from his lips.  She’d pulled the punch at the last moment – not using her full power – he’d be bruised, but his jaw wasn’t broken and his teeth should still be attached. He’d recover.

“That was from Spike,” she informed the dazed soldier before storming out the door and slamming it closed behind herself with a boom.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy came back into her room later that evening with one of Dawn’s protein-smoothie concoctions. Spike had fallen asleep early that morning, soon after downing about half the bottle of scotch that Dawn had brought. He’d used it to wash down a handful of Sam’s codeine, much to Dawn’s dismay, and the combination had left him literally feeling no pain and unable to keep his eyes open.

So, they’d left him alone to rest for most of the day, and hopefully keep healing. The minor wounds – the bruises and scrapes – were already looking better. The deep lacerations and missing chunks of muscle would take much longer, assuming they _could_ regenerate.

It honestly was a miracle how quickly he was healing, but Buffy wasn’t complaining! It was about time something went their way.

Buffy placed the glass of thick, green liquid down on the bedside table and pulled her chair up near the bed again, trying to be quiet and not wake the sleeping vampire.

“You sound like a herd o’ hippos, pet,” Spike informed her drowsily, not opening his eyes.

Buffy hmphed. “I do not. I’m Slayer stealthy … it’s a thing.”

Spike snorted and opened his eyes. “Yeah, like American English is a thing – nice in theory, but unhappily pedestrian in execution.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and reached for the protein shake. “Dawn sent you some … liquid grass,” she informed him. “It’s good for you, she says.”

“Why don’t you drink it then, pet? Looks like you need it,” he replied, looking at the long cuts on her arms, and scrapes on her face. He gingerly pushed himself into a more upright position in the bed, trying to not groan with pain, but his face contorted as daggers shot through his stomach with the effort. He propped his back up against the pillows and the headboard in order to get a better look at her. The pain subsided when he stopped moving and he relaxed again.

Buffy took a sip of Dawn’s concoction and her face screwed up into a grimace of disgust. “That’s okay,” she choked out, trying to force the liquid down her throat. “You need it more.”

“One of the perks of being a vampire: don’t actually need liquid grass t’ heal. Just blood,” he reminded her.

“Lucky you,” Buffy groaned, taking another sip of the drink with no better results. It was probably fine if you were a rabbit, but it was not fit for human consumption, she was sure.

“And whiskey,” he added belatedly, reaching a mangled hand out toward the half-empty bottle of scotch sitting on the table next to the bed.

Buffy put the smoothie down and grabbed the bottle of whiskey before Spike did. She twisted the cap off and took a swig directly from the bottle to wash the taste of liquefied grass from her mouth.

“Oi! Don’t get that rot in my whiskey,” Spike objected, reaching for the bottle. 

Buffy let him take it from her hand without demur. She made a face as she swallowed the whiskey which was strikingly similar to the one she made when she drank the smoothie. The only difference being that the whiskey-face seemed to travel down her whole body in a shiver of liquid fire.

Spike smiled in amusement as he watched her, wiping the mouth of the bottle with the sheet before taking long swig himself.

“Hey, I don’t have cooties,” Buffy objected, seeing him cleaning the bottle before drinking after her.

“Got smoothie-breath, and ya smell like Captain Cardboard,” he informed her, crinkling his nose in disgust before taking a swig of the amber fire.

“Did I ever mention how creepy that whole super-smelling thing is?” Buffy asked him.

“Once or twice,” Spike replied casually. “So, what does the git want now? Got a nest of Godzilla spawn t’ take out? Great white sharks in the pool need t’ be slain?”

Buffy snorted a laugh. “No, we just had a little chat.”

Spike lifted his brows fractionally, unable to get them to rise further through the swelling and bruises still on his face.

Buffy shrugged. “I told him to leave you alone. I might’ve … slugged him in the jaw a little.”

Spike barked out a deep, rumbling laugh. “Again? Bloody priceless! Don’t suppose ya filmed it so I could see, eh?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “I think I’ve been filmed enough for one lifetime,” she said, smiling.

Spike shook his head in disbelief. “Would drink a gallon of that liquified grass if I could’ve seen that. Bloody hell…” he muttered again, envisioning it in his mind.

“It felt pretty good,” she admitted. “I said it was from you.”

“If you’re trying to turn me on, it’s bloody workin’, pet,” Spike declared reverently.

“Watching paint dry turns you on, Spike,” she accused.

Spike shrugged, a smile still playing on his lips. “Paint’s bloody sexy, innit?”

Buffy laughed then and took his free hand in hers, turning it over slowly, examining it. “The bruises are fading already, and the swelling’s going down. Isn’t that fast, even for you?” she wondered, looking up at him.

Spike shrugged, pulling his hand back, holding it up and turning it back and forth to examine for himself. “Had Slayer blood ‘fore I went in,” he remarked, still looking a bit puzzled. “But, relatively sure I used that up in the fight.”

Even as they both watched, one shallow cut on his wrist began to slowly mend, new tissue growing together from each side to bridge the gap and close the wound.

Spike looked up at the nearly-empty bag of blood that still hung beside his bed. Dawn’s blood. Key blood. Made from Slayer and white magic. The girl had stopped the flow of it and removed the feeding tube from him several hours ago when he’d asked, before he’d had it all. Then he’d fallen asleep and the girls had left him alone, leaving the blood hanging there, unused.

“Be a pet and heat that up for me, would ya?” Spike asked Buffy, tilting his head up toward the remaining blood.

Buffy stood automatically to comply, reaching for the bag. “You hungry?” she wondered, removing the bag from the hook it hung on.

“Well, yeah, but not really a matter o’ hungry … just a theory. Ninety-eight point six, if ya don’t mind. Don’t overheat it. Cooked blood’s disgusting, an’ doesn’t do me any good.”

Buffy quirked a brow at him. “I don’t think the microwave has a ‘blood’ setting.”

“Put a pot o’ water on a hob on low, put the bag in it. There’s a thermometer in the second drawer to the right o’ the sink,” he advised her.

“I didn’t know we had a ‘hob.’ Is that a special blood-heater-upper?” Buffy questioned.

Spike rolled his eyes, which was getting less painful to do, despite the swelling around them. “Bloody colonists,” he muttered. “The round things that heat up when ya turn the electric on?”

Buffy pursed her lips, thinking.

“In the kitchen. Where yer mom cooked stuff? I saw ya using one at Rupert’s when you made the bleedin’ bear and got me shot full of arrows.”

Buffy’s brows furrowed, then cleared. “Oh, you mean the stove.”

Spike rolled his eyes again. “Right then, off ya go.”

“How do you know there’s a thermometer in the second drawer from the sink?” Buffy wondered.

Spike dropped his gaze, remembering. “Spent a bit o’ time here when you were …” The word ‘dead’ sticking in his throat, unable to be voiced.

“Oh. Right,” Buffy acknowledged solemnly, turning to go. “I’ll be right back.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike sipped the Key blood, savoring the flavor of it. There was definitely Slayer in there, and not just any Slayer, but Buffy. He would know her essence anywhere now, he’d never forget it. Bright, fiery, liquid sunshine that burned him deliciously, like no whiskey ever could. But there was more. Something ancient and electric and bloody powerful, sparkling bursts of lightning against his tongue.

Spike finished the blood, setting the empty mug down on the table next to the bed. He held one hand up, watching carefully. Nothing new happened immediately, and he thought perhaps he was wrong, but then, slowly, more of the bruises began to fade and the cuts began mending a little more quickly. One finger that had been broken and bent over into a mangled ‘C’ began to straighten.

“Holy shit,” Buffy gasped, watching along with him. “It’s Dawn’s blood doing it. It’s … it’s the magic … the Key or something in it, isn’t it?”

Spike looked up at her, just as amazed as she was. “Appears we’ve got another secret t’ keep, luv. If Angelus found out—”

“He won’t ever be Angelus again,” Buffy cut him off decisively.

Spike shook his head. “You don’t know that, pet.”

Buffy rolled her eyes to the ceiling, clenching her jaw. Of course she didn’t know that. But she hoped it every single day.

“Well, he _doesn’t_ know. No one knows but us, and it will stay that way,” Buffy assured him, meeting his serious gaze again. “We’re not gonna mention it to anyone, including Dawn. We’ll just say it’s the Slayer blood you had.”

Spike nodded. “Our secret. Till the end of the world.”

Buffy gave him a sad, but grateful smile and nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we know what’s helping Spike heal so quickly. Will that put Dawn in new danger in the future? Will Riley heed Buffy’s warning and keep is gob shut? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply magnificent -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	24. My Cross to Bear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike have some alone time.

* * *

 

Still sitting up against the headboard, Spike pulled his bottom lip between his teeth thoughtfully, considering all the possible dangers having special blood posed to Dawn. It wasn’t a complete panacea for him, but it certainly appeared to heal vampires much more quickly than even Slayer blood. But what else might it do? Was there anyone left, other than Buffy’s friends, who knew what Dawn was, how she was made?

He regretted biting his lip immediately, as a once-deep, nearly-closed cut was reopened with the familiar gesture.

“Bloody hell, might be healing, but everything still hurts,” he muttered, putting a hand up to touch the cut, which had begun to bleed again.

Buffy grimaced in sympathy. She got up hastily from her seat next to the bed and pulled a tissue from the box on her dresser.

“It would probably hurt a lot more without all the codeine you’ve had,” Buffy advised him. “I think you took enough to fell a mule.”

“Vampire constitution, more stubborn than mules,” he informed her.

Buffy laughed. “Not telling me anything I didn’t already know.

“Unfortunately, Sam didn’t leave enough for a mule. Do you want me to call her and try to get more?” Buffy offered, turning back to face him.

Spike shrugged. Honestly, he wouldn’t mind more, but he really didn’t want Buffy to leave. “I’ll do with the whiskey,” he assured her, taking another drink from the bottle he still held in his hand, trying not to get the potent potable into the cut.

Returning to the bed, Buffy dabbed the cut softly with the tissue, absorbing the blood.  “I’m sorry, Spike,” she whispered, her eyes growing concerned again, all levity drained away.

“Tis but a scratch,” he assured her.

His joke brought a small, but still sad, smile to her lips.

“I wish … I wish I could do something more, Spike. I just don’t know what,” she admitted, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to him, still dabbing at the spots of blood that welled on his lip. “I can’t ask Dawn for more blood this soon, that would make everyone suspicious. She already gave a pint.”

Spike nodded in agreement. “Could kiss it and make it better,” he suggested, his eyes dancing with sudden mischief.

Buffy let out a small snigger, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Do you ever stop?” she wondered, dropping her hand from his split lip. It was starting to close again, but blood still rose up from the deep laceration.

Spike smiled, hindering the healing process, breaking the split open even more, and shook his head. “Never,” he admitted, touching his tongue to the blood that welled on his lip. “Nothing could stop me wanting you.”

Buffy’s eyes met his and locked for a long, profound moment. She laid her palm gently against his bruised and tattered cheek as she leaned in slowly. Their lips touched so softly that they might’ve been kissing apparitions, ethereal and chaste. She tasted the metallic tang of his blood, but didn’t recoil, instead touching her own tongue to the spot with a gentle pressure. She felt his hand come up and brush her cheek, his touch radiating desire, need, and longing. And she felt all the same emotions flare in her blood, penetrating all the way to her very marrow.

The kiss broke as gently and naturally as it had started, but Buffy didn’t pull back, instead resting her forehead against his, their eyes closed. Her hand slid down from his cheek to his shoulder, but instead of strong, cool flesh, it found only the plastic bandages that covered most of his body, and she felt a pang of remorse for the loss.

“I love you,” Spike murmured, his bruised, but healing, fingers slipping back behind her neck to tangle in her short, soft locks.

“I…” Buffy’s throat tightened, and the next words stuck in her chest next to her heart, as if they’d gotten tangled in the razor-wire surrounding it.

 _‘…love you, too_.’ She could hear them inside, crashing around within the high, protective walls, unable to escape past the razor-wire atop the thick, stone battlements. She fought to try and release them for what seemed forever in her mind, but was only a moment, finally relinquishing her struggle and finishing with a soft, “…know.”

Buffy pulled back then and stood up slowly. She turned away, and Spike silently cursed himself. He couldn’t keep his gob shut, could he? Now she was gonna run again, leave him in her bed – one place he dearly longed to be – but alone. Utterly and completely alone.

To his surprise, she stopped at the door and locked it. She turned back around then, and her eyes met his. Without a word, Buffy pulled her shirt off, tossing it aside. Then her jeans slid down her strong, shapely, tanned legs to form a puddle at her feet, leaving her in just bra and panties. Again.

She bit her lip, feeling a bit self-conscious with him watching her so intently – his blue eyes seemed to bore into her like a laser beam. Usually, their intimate moments were a harried frenzy in the dark of night. Clothes were shed, and sometimes shredded, in feverish rushes, there was no time to watch the other undress, or examine every nook and cranny of the other’s body in the light.

“The bit?” he somehow managed to ask through his growing desire. He looked worriedly toward the door, then back at Buffy. Riley had been right about one thing: having sex with Buffy was not easily concealed or mistaken for anything else, and he wanted nothing more than to have her right now.

“There’s a Scooby meeting at the Magic Box with Riley and Sam to let everyone know the whole deal with the stinky demons. They’ll be gone a while, especially if Sam tells the story of your heroism again,” Buffy assured him giving him a small smile. “I guess we’ll find out if my chat with Riley had any effect. I’m sure Dawn will give me a full report.

“Plus, if Sam does do that, it’s fairly likely that Xander’s and Riley’s heads will explode and there will be a huge mess to clean up,” she only half-joked.

“Hero, is it?” Spike asked, quirking a brow at her. He wished he could see the two wankers’ heads explode. He’d pay real money to witness that.

“Big. Fat. Hero,” Buffy retorted sardonically, repeating the words she’d said to him earlier.

Spike looked down at his body, then back up at her, questioning, she knew, the ‘fat’ part.

Buffy shrugged, still smiling. “Fat headed,” she clarified, and Spike snorted a short laugh in reply.

She stepped toward him and her eyes found his again, losing herself in their blue depths. Within them, she found adoration, now tinged with amusement; it buoyed her and calmed her nerves. ‘ _Warts and all_ ,’ she remembered Dawn’s words. Still, Buffy was glad she didn’t have any actual warts. She reached back and unhooked her bra, letting it fall away, joining her other clothes on the floor. She then hooked her fingers beneath the lacy straps of her panties and wriggled them down her legs, leaving her standing before him naked, in more ways than one.

If she couldn’t say the words, then maybe she could at least show him how she felt. How much he meant to her. How much his loyalty, dedication, and love meant to her. How much she cared about him.

Spike set the whiskey bottle down and reached out for her; Buffy took the last step closer, so his hand touched her glowing flesh. Goose bumps danced over her body as his fingers caressed her breast gently, circling the dark areola with a feathery touch. Her nipples hardened beneath his fingers, her heart raced, and her core throbbed in need of his hardness pressing deep inside her.

Spike began to try and sit up further, to pull her closer, but Buffy shook her head and silently, gently pressed him back.

“This is my dance,” she whispered, “Let me lead.” 

She gently removed some of the pillows from behind him, so he was no longer propped up. Spike settled back willingly, taking his cues from her, watching her with his intense, blue gaze.

Buffy pulled the comforter off him, and the sheet beneath that, exposing his abused, battered, nearly destroyed body. She had to swallow back tears as she saw it again. It hadn’t gotten any easier, even though it was healing at an accelerated rate. It was much better than when she’d first brought him home, but it still hurt her to know all that he’d suffered and that he was still hurting. But she didn’t want to cry now; she just wanted him to know, wanted him to understand the words she couldn’t say, wanted to take some of the pain away.

Buffy began at the end of the bed with his feet, touching, kissing, caressing any skin that was undamaged or looked healed enough to not be painful. The healing putty-demon-plant-thing was still on his right foot, its roots still pulsing slowly; she didn’t touch that at all, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was doing.

She crawled up the bed slowly on hands and knees, straddling him. She moved deliberately up his body, touching kisses to every square inch of him that was unharmed and unbandaged. She looked up from time to time to see him watching her. Each time her green eyes met his blue ones, a shiver of yearning went through her, and not just for his body, but for all of him – mind, body, and damaged soul.

When Buffy reached Spike’s cock, which stood waving at attention above a small forest of curls, she stopped her ascent of his body and settled in for a long, slow seduction. Her tongue darted out, licking the salty pearl of precum from the slit and drawing it between her lips alluringly, making Spike moan in appreciation.

Buffy dropped her warm, wet lips down slowly over his cock, letting her tongue swirl heat around and around the column of stone, tasting him, teasing him. She felt his flesh react to her, swelling even larger, hardening to honed steel beneath her touch. She slowly took him into her, inch by tantalizing inch, until his glans was poised at the back of her velvety throat. She stayed there, teasing him with her tongue and lips for many long moments before she dropped down in one swift motion, taking all of him.

Her face buried itself in his curls, and she swallowed frantically around the intrusion of his glans deep in her throat. Her eyes watered involuntarily as his cock jumped and jerked in rapture between her lips. Her throat undulated around the sensitive head of his manhood, trying desperately to swallow him completely, to have him all.

“Bloody fuck,” she heard him mutter above her, and she smiled around his thick rod, pulling back slightly and releasing his cock from the tightness of her undulating throat.  

Her tongue took up the cause again, swirling back and forth over the soft skin which covered the rock-hardness of his desire. She tightened her lips around his yearning flesh suddenly, sucking hard enough to raise Spike’s hips up off the mattress, then just as suddenly released the pressure, and he dropped back.

“Jesus, God… Buffy…” he groaned, reaching down to touch her. He couldn’t keep from touching her now. He had to feel her warm flesh beneath his fingers as she took him.

Buffy began pumping her warm, wet mouth up and down his length slowly, her tongue tracing rivers of burning desire over his marble-hard prick with each movement up and down … up and down. One of her hands cupped his heavy balls, her thumb caressing the soft flesh gently. She teased and roused every last bit of desire that lived within those jewels into a passionate frenzy, driving Spike to the edge of reason.

Just when he thought he wouldn’t be able to hold back another moment, she stopped moving. Her warm mouth hovered around his cock, but nothing touched him except for the very tip of her tongue, which darted out and flicked repeatedly, wickedly against his frenulum.

“Bloody fucking shit, son of a fucking …” Spike’s words degenerated into groans and gasps of pleasure so intense it was painful. His body went completely rigid, his uninjured toes curling, and all conscious thought left him.

Buffy felt his balls tighten in her hand, and she took him deep and hard, slamming the head of his cock into her undulating throat, which constricted around him wildly. She sucked down on him fiercely, as if to pull the cool, sweet seed from his balls by force.

But no force was needed. Spike was lost in her touch, lost in the heat of her, in the feel of her, in the lust she roused deep inside him. All pain in his body suddenly vanished, burned to dust in the passion of her touch. He could not have held back another moment if his un-life depended on it. He was hers. And she could have all of him.

His spunk erupted from his constricting balls in a volcanic explosion of unbridled release. His cock filled with bursts of white-hot passion which surged into her urgently, desperately. There was no pain in his broken finger as his hand clamped down on Buffy’s shoulder involuntarily. There was nothing except the cloud of ecstasy that he floated in with the woman he loved.

Buffy could feel his cock surge beneath her lips and pulled back enough so his cum shot into her mouth, not directly down her throat. She had to taste him. She needed his seed to fill her mouth, coat her tongue, touch her lips. She needed to feel that part of him within her, cool and slick, tangy and sweet, with just the barest burn of whiskey beneath it all.

She licked and moaned around his cock, sucking insistently, urging every drop of the nectar from his balls. Not until she felt Spike’s whole body relax, his cock begin to soften, and the constriction in his balls lessen, did she slowly, somewhat reluctantly, release him, licking every drop of his spunk from his flesh as she pulled away.

She looked up his body and into his face then. His eyes were just flickering open, returning from heaven, and filled with a dazed joy which swelled her own heart. When he focused on her, she was just licking some escaping semen from her lips and dabbing it off her chin with a finger. It was the single most erotic thing Spike thought he’d ever seen: his spunk coating the Slayer’s lips, running down her chin, marking her as his. Bloody. Fucking. Hell.

He pulled her up his body then, crushing her lips against his, the pain a long-forgotten memory in the lust-filled moment. She came willingly, her lips parting for him eagerly, their tongues dancing wildly. He tasted himself there, inside her warm, wet mouth, and it made him want her again. Would he ever get enough of her? He thought it highly unlikely.

He moaned against her lips, desperate and yearning. God, he needed more of her. All of her. He had to taste her.

He pushed her back abruptly, the kiss parting with a wet, sucking ‘pop’. Her chest was heaving, her breath short and rapid, and he could smell her desire, her need. He had to have it. Now.

“Give us a taste, pet. Bloody hell, Buffy … I need to taste you,” he begged as he began trying to wriggle down further in the bed to reach that sweet scent that drifted to him from her honey pot.

At first Buffy didn’t realize what he was trying to do, but it only took a moment for it to dawn on her. She lifted up off him and helped him slide down in the bed a bit more, then carefully returned to her position straddling him, but much further up.

“Oh, God … Buffy,” Spike moaned as her sweet, glistening pussy hovered above his mouth. He pulled her hips down just that much closer and buried his tongue between her sweet pussy lips, moaning in rhapsody as her juices flowed into him. There was only one word he could conjure to describe what she tasted like: effulgent.

Buffy’s body jerked, and she moaned with him, her hands gripping the headboard fiercely as his tongue found her clit.  Another flood of nectar gushed from her throbbing channel and bolts of pleasure shot through her as he began to gently make love to her with his clever, gifted tongue and lips.

He circled her clit, teasing, then flicked the tip of his tongue over the hard, little bundle of nerves. Buffy’s legs twitched and shuddered involuntarily with each touch, her hips gently thrusting against him. Spike’s hands gripped her round, sweet ass and he let one finger slip between the fleshy mounds to tease her puckered hole, making her gasp.

He kept teasing her relentlessly, coaxing more and more sweet nectar from her. His tongue tantalizing and sweetly-torturing her clit, using the knowledge gained over a century to make her moan in pleasure and tremble against him. His finger played lightly with the sensitive opening of her ass, only flirting, not demanding or taking. He lifted her to the edge, time and again, but didn’t let her fall, building up the need in her to heights she’d never before imagined existed.   

“Please … please … Spike,” Buffy begged, her body trembling now with the pent-up lust and passion, yearning desperately for release.

He too, was near a breaking point. He wanted to taste her as she came, wanted to feel her slick ecstasy coating his lips and tongue, as his had coated hers. He needed her to explode just as much as she did at this moment, and he readily gave in to her desperate pleas.

He thrust his tongue deep into her throbbing channel, curling it and pressing the tip hard against the front of her vagina, expertly finding that spot that made her wild. His nose pressed hard against her clit, sending shards of brilliant light exploding through her body from the spot, and his finger slipped gently into her tight ass.

Buffy gasped, then screamed and convulsed above him, her body arching into a tight bow, her hips driving against his mouth, taking everything he had to give and demanding more.  Her body seemed to explode into a million shards of bright, hot, ecstasy, flying out into the heavens to dance among the stars. She never wanted this feeling to end, and at the same time thought she would _literally_ explode if it continued one more second.

It was pain. It was pleasure. How could it be both? How could it not?

She wanted to scream at him to stop – that it was too much, she was too high – but, at the same time, she wanted him to give her more, take her higher – higher than heaven, to the very edge of the universe. In the end, no words formed. She just screamed, primal and passionate. Stars danced and burst brightly behind her closed lids as she floated in the place where nothing mattered but them. Her and Spike. There was nothing else.

Her cum exploded from her channel in eruptions of hot, sweet passion, coating Spike’s tongue and lips, filling his mouth with the shimmering brilliance of her. He swallowed eagerly, greedily, sucking against her hot, slick skin. The vampire thrust his tongue into her tight channel over and over, fucking her into oblivion, coaxing more and more sweet essence from her. He could never get enough of her. Never. Not in a hundred years. Not in a million. He thought he could live forever on her intoxicating nectar; he wanted nothing more than to try.

When some coherent thought returned, Buffy reached a hand behind her and found what she was looking for instantly: his cock, a hard column of cold steel, yearning for her yet again. She had to appreciate vampire stamina, even damaged and drugged, Spike’s desire for her seemed unhindered.

With her body still quivering and yearning, still teetering on the highest ledge ready to fall again, she pulled away from Spike’s amazing tongue, and slid back down his body. She was careful to not put weight on his ravaged stomach or accidentally rip off any of the bandages as she moved, but at the same time, she didn’t dawdle. She needed him inside her, deep and hard, and _now_.

With her hips poised over his, Buffy looked down at him, wanting to see the yearning in his eyes, see the pleasure when she took him inside her. His face glistened with her juices. His lips and chin dripped with her cum, and it was fucking hot. She couldn’t stop herself from leaning down and kissing him then, tasting herself on his lips, his tongue. It made her body quiver, her heart skitter, and her yearning redouble. Beads of white hot-pleasure ricocheted through her veins, fierce and insistent, and growing by the second.

Holy fuck … was she as big a perv as he was?

‘ _Well, duh,’_ came the answer inside her mind, and she kissed him harder, desperately thrusting her tongue against his in a silent demand for more.

She suddenly pulled back, breathless, her eyes locked on his. “Need you,” she gasped out. “Cum with me … if you … can?” she added lamely at the end, suddenly realizing that his recovery might not be that complete given his injuries, Key blood or not.

Spike’s hooded gaze darkened with blatant need to do just that. He sucked his bottom lip behind his teeth again, tasting the blood there, but nodded earnestly. He could. He always could with her.

His eyes didn’t leave hers as she lowered down. He guided his yearning prick into her throbbing, slick hole, and they both gasped at once as the head of his cock slipped inside her channel. The supple corona of skin surrounding her opening stretched wide around the glans, and then snapped back tight around his hard shaft, holding him within, her willing prisoner.

They both stopped moving there for a moment, lost in that first moment of connection. No matter how many times they joined, this first moment was always magical, and this time they actually took a little time to bask in the exquisite ecstasy of it.  With their gazes locked, their bodies joined, the world fell away, leaving nothing but this moment of perfect bliss between them.

But the need was too great on both of their parts to linger here overlong. There was more magic to be conjured, an even deeper bliss to dive into.

They moved as one, somehow knowing just the right moment to begin. Spike lifted his hips carefully, desperate for her, but not wanting to tear anything vital in the process, and Buffy lowered down. She took him inside slowly, her slick walls opening for him, then molding tightly to his girth. A living, burning sheath made just for his sword, fitting together perfectly.

Their eyes remained locked on each other, drinking in the desire and luxuriating in the passion flowing between them. Hard and soft, warm and cold, Slayer and vampire. Could they be any more different on the outside? Could they be any more alike deep within? They swayed together to the slow beat of a sweet love song, their bodies joining then nearly parting, then joining again as violins serenaded them tenderly.  There were no words between them, none were needed; their eyes, their bodies, their hearts were speaking for them.

And then, as if a silent signal passed between them, the dance changed. The ballad of slow, gentle coupling ended, ushering in screaming guitars and thumping drums. Rock-n-roll would take them where they needed to go, into the dance that seemed always to call to them. Frenetic. Feverish. Frantic. Primal.

“Buffy… harder. Fuck me … bloody hell, harder,” Spike begged with a desperate groan, unable to do more than shallow thrusts up into her without fear of his insides becoming ‘outsides’ again. “Fuck me like ya mean it, Slayer! Do it! Fuck me!”

She couldn’t agree more! She needed more, harder, deeper. “Give it to me, you bastard!” she roared at him, suddenly wild and wanton in her desire to have him, to have all of him, to feel his seed spill inside her, to drive the darkness away from their hearts, to float in the light with him.

He wanted nothing more than to give it to her good, to fuck her until the house collapsed around them, to give her everything she deserved and desired. Spike wanted to fuck her until she split in two, until she shattered beneath him, and still begged him for more. But he could only give so much, she had to take it, and all he could do now was make her.

“Take it, you bitch! Both know what you are, don’t we?! Bloody freak o’ nature, you are! Call _me_ a sex fiend? You’re one to bloody talk! You want me? You want my cock poundin’ into you? Want my spunk fillin’ your hot quim? You want more!? You’re the Slayer! You can just fucking take it!”

Buffy actually growled. It wasn’t the deep resonate growl she’d heard so often from Spike, but it was a growl, beastly and feral, and she felt it to her bones. A need, carnal and primal, to take what he had, to use him, to fuck him until he begged for mercy, bloomed inside the Slayer. She slammed her hips down on his prick furiously, brutally thrusting against him, heedless of his injuries, driving his cock deep and hard into her yearning channel.  She couldn’t think, she could only feel. And what she felt was an urgent, unmitigated, primal hunger that only Spike could quell.

Their bodies moved to the new rhythm, faster, harder, louder. They pounded together to the beat of Buffy’s heart, hammering at a frantic pace, building to a soul-shattering crescendo. They took all that the other had to give, and gave everything back, lifting each other higher and higher, floating on the cascading notes of the sizzling guitar.

“Spike … cumming … now … now, God … cum now! Cum in me!!” Buffy demanded breathlessly, her body teetering on the razor’s edge yet again. The promise of heaven floated out before her like a sea of bright, gleaming rapture – the place where the darkness that had come back with her from the grave cowered and dwindled.

And then Spike did growl, a leonine rumble filling the room like rolling thunder. And, like the Suvolte, the Slayer was one of the one percent who didn’t cower from that sound. She dove into it, riding the thunder over the edge of reason, beyond the reach of the darkness, and into the glimmering light of heaven.

His spunk exploded into her, surging through his cock in an urgent, brutal need to mark her, to make her his, to be part of her. Buffy’s body jerked and bowed, and a scream of orgasmic release joined Spike’s growl, reverberating in the small room. Her hot, wet sheath tightened and spasmed around him with a power that would crush a weaker man as she exploded with him. Holding him deep within her, her body convulsed wildly around him, atop him, burgeoning with the escape from the darkness that he always brought her.

Outside her body, she found Spike waiting for her in a field of glittering stars. They danced in each other’s arms, stepping lightly from star to gleaming star in a heavenly waltz. They both glowed, brilliant and dazzling, the darkness driven out, or at least pressed back. She kissed him as they twirled and spun in each other’s arms, their feet touching down, nimble and sure, on the astral diamonds that dotted the dark heavens.

It wasn’t until they began to drift slowly back to their bodies that Buffy realized that they were stars themselves, now falling stars, heated and glowing brightly as they returned to their place on Earth. She wrapped her arms around Spike as they floated back down, holding onto the twinkling light, bringing it with them to use when the darkness threatened to overwhelm them.

When she came back to herself, she was still clinging to Spike, kissing him deeply, but gently. His arms were around her, his cock still buried deep inside her body. Their combined release slowly trickled from their joined bodies, cooling as it coated his balls and puddled on the sheet beneath.

“Did I hurt you?” Buffy panted against him, trying to sit back and check his wounds. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

Spike discouraged her moving by tightening his hold fractionally. “No. Well… nothin’ I mind,” he assured her.

“God, Spike, I’m really sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be like that,” Buffy admitted quietly, relaxing back against his chest, her breath coming a little more easily now.

“Wasn’t it, then?”

Buffy shook her head, sighing, resting her head on his shoulder. “It was supposed to be … gentle and caring. I wanted … I wanted to show you how much I … I … How much you mean to me.”

Spike stroked her back gently with his still slightly battered fingers. “You showed me, pet,” he assured her. “Always show me, you do. Always fill me with light and ...” Spike hesitated, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously before he added, “… love.”

To his relief, Buffy didn’t seem to take exception to the word. “But why can’t I be gentle and caring?” she wondered solemnly. He could tell it wasn’t a rhetorical question.

Spike snorted softly beneath her, shaking her body slightly. “You are, pet. I’ve seen your kindness and your strength. I’ve seen how much you care, how much you give. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you, Buffy, and I love the woman you are. 

“Never apologize for your passion. Never dull that fire inside. Let it burn, Buffy, let it rage; it won’t scare me or shock me or singe me. It just makes my fire burn brighter, it makes me love you more.”

She again tried to steel her nerve, to release the words that were trapped deep inside her defenses, but they simply couldn’t scale the high castle walls that kept her heart safe. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back resolutely, sighing. She let it go, at least for now, not wanting to ruin this peaceful moment as she relaxed even more heavily against him.

Spike caressed her back with his fingertips, running them up and down either side of her spine as they lay in a peaceful hush for a long while, just _being_.

After a relative eternity by their standards, Buffy broke the silence, asking quietly, “Did you call me a bitch?”

Spike’s fingers froze in their path up and down her spine and he held his breath beneath her. 

Buffy sat up, looking down and quirking a brow at him in question. “And a freak?”

“Well, in fairness, you did call me a bastard first,” he reminded her.

“And a sex fiend,” she added, folding her bandaged arms over her bare breasts, and giving him a gimlet glare.

“Yeah, well, pet, ya see … I can explain,” he began defensively.

“You know what’s cute?” she asked, cutting him off. “You, when you’re trying to squirm out of trouble.”

Spike’s brows went up marginally, only because it still hurt for them to go up more. “Am I, then?”

“Cute,” Buffy confirmed, tapping a finger very gently on the tip of his nose.

 _‘Is she drunk again?’_ Spike wondered, studying her closely. It reminded him that they needed to have a chat about that later. But no, she wasn’t.

Buffy leaned down to touch a soft kiss to his lips. “You’re also very hot when you get all growly and talk dirty,” she revealed confidentially, sitting back up. “Don’t stop.”

Spike ran his tongue along his top lip tantalizingly. “Not easy bein’ this hot _and_ cute, but, we all have our crosses to bear, pet,” he declared, a small smile curving his lips.

Buffy laughed, her eyes sparkling, and Spike melted at the sight. Of all her looks, of all her moods, he would take this above all else, even the wild, sex-crazed vixen. All was right with the world when Buffy smiled at him.

Spike clicked off the bedside lamp and then opened his arms, inviting her to lay back down atop him. She gladly accepted, pulling the comforter over them, creating a little cocoon of serenity in the darkness.

“I love you, Buffy,” he whispered into her blonde locks, wrapping his bandaged arms around her lightly.

 _‘I love you too,’_ echoed in her mind, but the words didn’t reach her lips. Instead she touched a soft kiss against his neck and snuggled against him tighter. It was all she could give. She hoped it was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed their alone time. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply magnificent -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	25. We Need to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike talk about what happened when he bit her.

****

* * *

 

**Two days later…**

“Breakfast is served,” Buffy announced, entering her dimly-lit bedroom with a mug of perfectly heated blood. “Ninety-eight point six, just like you like it.”

It was the crack of noon, technically the middle of the night for Spike, but he’d been doing little more than eating, resting, and, well, shagging the Slayer when the opportunity arose, for the last couple of days. He didn’t mind his beauty sleep being interrupted at odd hours. He welcomed it, actually.

Buffy was still in her fluffy pink bathrobe, freshly showered, and ready to spend a whole day doing absolutely nothing productive. She’d worked double-shifts the last two days as an underpaid minion at the DoubleMeat Palace and had also patrolled afterwards. She was ready for a break. She didn’t want to think about that horrid place for another twenty-four hours, when her turn at the grindstone came up again. Patrolling wasn’t as horrible as serving secret ingredients to hangry families, but it, too, was many hours away ... if she went at all.

As rumors flew regarding the Terrible Tribble Tumult, as she liked to call it, the demons and vampires of Sunnydale seemed to be keeping a low profile, and new demons seemed to be steering clear of the area. Apparently, no one was exactly sure who had slaughtered all those Suvolte demons, but, whoever it was lived in Sunnydale, and the evil of the world didn’t want to meet them.

In other good news, Riley seemed to have taken Buffy’s threat to heart, because he let Sam do most of the talking at the Scooby meeting the other night. Dawn reported that he sighed dramatically and coughed loudly at key moments as Sam recounted how the vampire had sacrificed himself, letting her get the two humans out of there, and then saving her at the end, but he didn’t otherwise interrupt her. Even when Sam told them that Spike was a hero for keeping those Suvolte spawn from escaping, Finn only rolled his eyes and sighed, never actually saying anything derogatory about the vampire. Dawn, of course, helpfully slapped her hand down on Riley’s back when he coughed, right against his injured shoulder, to help clear the bullshit he was choking on from his windpipe.

Spike pushed up to a seated position in the bed, leaning back against the pillow and headboard. It was getting easier to do, but he still felt things writhe and shift in his belly every time he moved very much. Most of his body was still covered in the wrappings and bandages that Sam had applied. Still, things seemed to be getting better, the large hollows of missing flesh were starting to fill back in beneath the plastic-wrapped artificial skin, and the small cuts, bruises, and abrasions were well on their way to being fully healed.

The cast of living clay on his foot tingled and itched, but Buffy threatened to make him drink nothing but Dawn’s liquified grass health-food smoothies if he touched it, so he refrained. He thought he could feel something squirming within it up near the toes now and then, and it was a little disconcerting. He had visions of an alien exploding out of it and scuttling away, but he dared not lay a finger on it, taking Buffy’s threat to heart.

It was amazing how much faster he healed with human blood than the pig’s blood he normally survived on. Not to mention the Slayer blood he’d had, which was like jet fuel for a vampire. And Dawn’s blood – he’d never before considered what extra kick magically created Key blood would contain, but he was certainly grateful for it.

“Thanks, luv,” he replied, reaching to take the mug from her hand, giving her a grateful smile.

“You do know there will be a quid-pro-quo for all this, right?” Buffy asked, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed.

Spike quirked a brow at her. “Will there, then? Seems like ya been takin’ all the ‘quo’ outta me that ya need of late,” he teased, dropping a hand down to the sheet over his crotch and giving her a smoldering look. “Be happy t’ provide more, though.”

A bright pink flush, which matched her bathrobe, rose over Buffy’s cheeks. “Not that!” she hissed, looking back to make sure she’d closed the door. She’d had. She’d also locked it, which had become a habit lately, too.

“I meant you’re gonna have to bring me breakfast in bed when you’re better.”

“Could give ya some breakfast in bed right now, pet,” he offered, a wickedly hot gleam in his blue eyes, his hips shifting fractionally beneath the covers.

Buffy’s tongue ran over her lips, as if she could taste the breakfast he was offering, and her eyes slipped down to where his hand rested on the bulge in the sheets.

She might’ve drooled a little.

But then she cleared her throat and shook her head. “Dawn’s home … and Willow,” she informed him regretfully.

Spike shrugged, looking at her thoughtfully. “Can I ask ya a question?”

“You just did,” she replied, smiling. Then, after a beat, “Sure.”

“How in bloody hell did Finn survive you, pet?”

The pink flush on Buffy’s cheeks turned pomegranate red, and embarrassed heat rolled off her in waves. “Well … errr … I mean … That’s a little personal, isn’t it?” she stammered.

“Ya don’t think what we’ve been doin’ is personal, luv? Is for me.”

Buffy opened her mouth and then closed it, considering. “I just meant … for Riley. It wouldn’t be … fair to, you know, kiss and tell,” she replied, crinkling her nose. Her voice rose a little at the end, almost turning it into a question.

Spike nodded slowly, also considering. “He didn’t have to survive you,” he concluded thoughtfully. “You never gave him all of Buffy … you smothered the fire.”

Buffy bit her lip and looked away from Spike, studying a very interesting spot on the carpet beside the bed.

“I’m sorry, pet.” And Spike meant it, not for asking the question, but for her. He hated to think of her with the plonker, but he hated to think of her fire being extinguished, or restrained, even more.

Buffy looked up then and shook her head, giving him a small smile and a shrug. “I didn’t … I mean … I did some, but,” she broke off, trying to find the words. “Since I’ve come back, it’s different. I’m different. The fire … it’s like an inferno now rather than a cute little bar-b-que in the hibachi,” she admitted.

“And you’re like … gasoline,” she added, meeting his eyes.

Spike smirked. “Thought I was more like rocket fuel.”

Buffy chuckled and rolled her eyes. “There you go with the modesty again.”

Spike gave her a wicked smile, which was getting easier to do. At least his lip didn’t crack any longer when he did that. He lifted the mug of blood up and breathed in the aroma of it. When the scent hit him, he jerked back as if he’d been shot, nearly sloshing some of it out of the mug and onto the sheets covering him.

“What the bloody hell is this?” he demanded, looking up at the Slayer.

“Slayer blood,” she replied evenly.

“Knew that, didn’t I?” he retorted. “Whose?”

“Faith’s. I had Angel…”

“Angel?” Spike growled angrily.

“Calm down,” Buffy insisted, raising her hands up in placation. “I had Angel get it. Faith doesn’t like me … or trust me. Gotta say, the feeling’s mutual. She’s a body-stealing psycho with major daddy issues.”

Spike quirked an inquiring brow at her, but Buffy ignored it.

“Anyway, he and Faith are …” Buffy shrugged, not really sure what they were. “She shot him with poison here that time, then they tried to kill each other for a while down in L.A, now they’re BFFs or something ... you know, the usual. Anyway, he knows her, and she trusts him enough to give him her blood.”

Spike sniffed it again. “Did he know it was for me? Might’a poisoned it.”

Buffy snorted. “It’s not poisoned. He thought it was for me … I told him Willow was doing some kind of magic thing and needed it.”

“Lyin’ to the ex now, eh? I like it,” he smirked, taking a small, cautious sip.

“Not lying. It is for me … in a round-about way,” she defended with a small pout.

Buffy watched him carefully. “Is it okay?”

“Tastes like … boredom,” he observed. “And prison food.”

Buffy’s brows drew together. “How would you know what prison food tastes like?”

Spike shrugged nonchalantly. “Ate some escaped cons that, unluckily for them, tried t’ break into the house me and Dru were occupyin’ at the time.

“Kinda like doin’ my civic duty, yeah?” he observed, lifting his chin a bit with pride.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “You’re a regular Captain America.”

“Too right,” he agreed, taking a long swallow of the blood. It was nothing like Buffy’s, which was like shimmering, liquid sunshine, but there was power in this – and darkness. He could feel it surge through him and go to work, speeding up his natural healing process. At this rate, he might feel well enough to hobble downstairs and watch Passions on the telly this afternoon.

“Speakin’ of Slayer blood,” he began, finishing the mug and setting it down on the bedside table. “We need to talk, you and me.”

“Were we speaking of Slayer blood?” Buffy wondered, furrowing her brows, trying to concentrate on that part of what he said instead of the ‘we need to talk’ part. Those are four words no one ever wants to hear from their … boyfriend? Lover? What the hell should she call Spike? Neither of those sounded sufficient to cover it.

Spike shrugged, reaching out to grasp Buffy’s wrist and turn it up, revealing the now faint, barely noticeable mark from his bite. He rubbed a thumb over the soft skin gently, then looked up, meeting her eyes.

“Tell me what happened,” he requested in a serious tone.

“You were there,” she hedged, pulling her hand back.

Spike gave her an impatient look, quirking his scarred brow at her.

Buffy sighed and looked down at her wrist, before covering the faint scar with her other hand.

“I don’t really know,” she admitted with a sigh. “I mean … it was like an out-of-body experience. I was out of my body and … into yours.”

Spike raised both brows at that, waiting for her to continue.

“It was like _I_ was the blood, and I could feel myself flow into you. I could feel your demon, even see it – very scary, by the way. Kudos to your FX artist –  but I could feel your heart … your soul too.”

Spike opened his mouth, clearly to protest, but Buffy held a hand up, stopping him.

The vampire clamped his teeth over his lower lip to cut off whatever he was about to say and let her continue.

“I could feel the bloodlust, Spike, the demon, and the darkness. There was evil there, but there was more. There was a light deep inside, and I was drawn to it like a moth to flame. I’m telling you: your soul didn’t leave you – you came back wrong – but it’s damaged, just like mine – only worse,” she confided, her eyes locked on his in an effort to force him to accept the truth of it.

“It looked like a little brown bird, like a sparrow, with a broken wing – or two broken wings, maybe a broken leg too, some cracked ribs, a black eye, and probably croup, and malnutrition – possibly a vitamin D deficiency,” she rambled. 

Spike pursed his lips together to keep from laughing at her. The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement, but he managed to remain silent.

Buffy waved a hand, dismissing the bird’s many maladies. “I found it huddled in the glow of a tiny flame, trying to stay out of the darkness. I touched it, Spike. I picked it up and held it against me and it just … _glowed_. It was so fragile and so afraid, but it trusted me, and it seemed to heal a little as I held it.”

Spike’s brows raised in a doubtful expression.

“I touched it. It’s there,” she insisted firmly at his dubious look.

“My soul is a … sparrow? Not a bloody falcon or an eagle … an osprey, maybe?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Little, brown, timid, kinda cute … yeah, that’s it.”

He frowned at her, looking unconvinced, especially about the sparrow part.

He’d felt that flame glowing inside, it was true, and he’d always felt just a bit ‘off’ for a vampire. He’d had to work doubly-hard to be the badass-iest vampire he could be to keep Dru, Darla, and Angelus from suspecting anything was amiss.

After the debacle with his mother, he’d begun inciting riots and bloody fists-and-fangs brawls. Those had annoyed Angelus to no end, an extra bonus! But then he’d learned about Slayers. After that, Spike had used them as his focus, as the way to be the evilest vampire in Evilville, by hunting them down and killing as many Slayers as he could.  Even if he had ‘come back wrong’, could there really be a soul in there after all he’d done? Even a broken one? It sounded crazy.

“I know this sounds crazy … it _is_ crazy!” Buffy insisted, as if reading his mind. “But you asked me what happened, so I’m telling you. I was inside you, not just my blood, my … my …” she waved a hand helplessly around her head, searching for a word. “… brainy bits,” she finished.

“Brainy bits, is it?” he asked teasingly.

“I have brainy bits – lots of them. They keep my skull from shrinking,” she insisted, pouting.

Spike smiled then and nodded. “You do, pet. I love yer brainy bits.”

“But you still don’t believe me?”

Spike shrugged. “It’s a nice thought, pet, but it sounds like a bad acid trip, t’ me. You sure you aren’t dropping? I’ve had one or two o’ those wild rides, and—”

“It’s not nineteen-seventy and I’m not dropping acid!” she declared vehemently.

“Wait, there was more!” she added hastily in an attempt to make him believe her. “When I put the bird back down, I started moving around, away from the flame.

“I got further from the light and deeper into the darkness. Near the darkest parts I saw these little, like … bright, burning fish swimming around in there too. I’m not sure what that was about. You weren’t a fisherman or ...?”

Spike snorted and shook his head. “Dru.”

“Dru was a fisherman? Fisher-woman … fisher-person?” Buffy asked, her brows furrowing.

Spike laughed. “Dru was…” Spike twirled a finger near his temple, the universal sign for crazy.

“Oh, well … yeah,” Buffy agreed, rolling her eyes.

“There was one other thing I remember,” Buffy continued. “I couldn’t _see_ it really … it was just a word that came to me before I left the light of the flame: effulgent.”

Spike started, looking at her sharply.

“That means something to you, doesn’t it? What is it?”

Spike shook his head dismissively, averting his eyes from hers. “Just twaddle from … before.”

“Before Dru?”

Spike nodded solemnly. “Back when I thought I knew what it was,” he breathed out quietly.

“What _what_ was?”

“What love was. What effulgent was,” Spike admitted.

Buffy frowned. “What is it?”

Spike looked up into her eyes then, holding her gaze as he answered. “You.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply magnificent -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	26. The Needle's Stuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike continue to explore the connection she felt to him during the bite.
> 
> Note: Song Referenced: Hooked on a Feeling, BJ Thomas.

__

* * *

 

_“What what was?” she asked._

_“What love was. What effulgent was,” Spike admitted._

_Buffy frowned. “What is it?”_

_Spike looked up into her eyes then, holding her gaze as he answered. “You.”_

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

* * *

 

Buffy melted a little at his words, sighing dreamily, and reached out to take Spike’s hand in hers.

“You must’ve been quite the romantic poet, William,” she surmised. “Must’ve had the ladies swooning left and right, huh?”

Spike snorted. “I’ve learned a bit since then, luv. Learned t’ keep my poems to myself, for one thing. Your imagination o’ my romantic prowess makes me a better poet than I could ever be in truth,” he admitted.

“I doubt that,” Buffy argued, standing up and letting her robe fall open, revealing nothing but bare skin beneath. Her skin was tan but for the bikini-shaped, ivory silhouette around her breasts and hips, seeming to spotlight those areas in Spike’s vision, drawing his gaze like magnets.

She climbed on the bed and swung one leg over Spike’s hips, facing him, settling down gently in his lap, atop the sheet. “I bet you can be poetic now,” she urged, lifting one of his hands to her bare breast.

Spike cupped the warm, soft roundness, letting his thumb gently caress the nipple. Her body responded immediately, the little pebble hardening under his touch. He dropped his mouth down and suckled her, letting his tongue dance around and around the erect, yearning nub.

“God, Spike,” Buffy moaned, her back arching, pressing her breasts against him. “That’s the most beautiful poem I’ve ever …” Her words were cut off by a gasp as his fingers pinched her other nipple, twisting lightly, making her squirm atop him.

“Thought the bit was home,” he murmured against her soft skin, switching his mouth to the other breast.

“You’ll just have to ... _ooooooo_ … keep … _mmmmmm_ … me quiet,” Buffy breathed, her hands reaching behind her to tug the sheet from between their bodies.

Spike’s lips roamed up from her tender breast to her neck, kissing, licking, suckling all the while. Gooseflesh erupted over her skin, sparks of desire radiating from his touch directly to her aching core, consuming her with need.

“How d’ ya propose I do that, luv? Killin’ ya would be the only way,” he informed her.

Buffy pulled back slightly, taking his face between her hands so he would look at her.

“Bite me,” she suggested, tilting her head to one side slightly, a silent invitation. “That was quiet, right?”

“What?” Spike cried, more than a little shocked. “Nearly killed ya the last time,” he reminded her.

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t take too much, that wasn’t why I … why I had a hard time getting back. It was the darkness. I got caught up in it, tangled and a little lost. It tried to hold me there, not let me come back. But I won’t go there this time, I’ll stay in the light. I just want to show you – the light is there,” she insisted.

“No,” Spike refused flatly, taking her hands in his and removing them from his face. He kissed her knuckles gently but kept shaking his head in denial.

“William was a good man,” Buffy announced, changing tactics. “ _You_ are a good man.”

“No,” he repeated.

“Yes, you are. I’ve seen it,” she insisted, extracting one of her hands from his and placing a gentle finger beneath his chin, raising his eyes back to hers. “I can prove it.

“Do you trust me?” she asked him gravely.

“You know I do, with my life,” Spike replied, just as solemnly.

“Then do this for me so I can show you. William will not let the demon hurt me.

“Make love to me.  I want to feel you inside me, Spike. I want to be inside you, to show you the light is still there and it’s growing,” Buffy pleaded, her eyes searching his, beseeching him to trust her.

“William’s a bloody ponce,” Spike argued.

“He’s a good man,” Buffy insisted.

Spike’s eyes searched hers for some clue to guide him. He wanted so badly to believe her, but so many years in the dark was too hard to ignore. He had felt that flame, though, when he was with her. And she seemed to know things that she had no way to know. Could she be right? Could it be kindled? Could he be a good man, and not a monster? Could he really be worthy of her?

There was the slightest nod of Spike’s head, so small Buffy wasn’t certain that she’d seen it. Then he leaned forward and kissed her, softly, gently, languorously.

When their lips parted, Spike trailed a line of butterfly-kisses from her lips, along her jaw and up to her ear.  “I trust you,” he whispered against her, his breath a tickle of silk against her flesh.

“I trust you, too,” she murmured as she lifted up and guided his hardness into her aching womanhood.

They both gasped as she pressed down, taking his yearning flesh into her soft, slick depths. She lowered down gently, her supple walls opening for him, then molding to his girth, embracing his hardness rapturously with strength and desire.

Spike continued his rain of kisses and suckles down from her ear to the spot on her neck where the pulse pounded. There, he stopped, letting his lips and tongue make love to her blood, thrumming just below the surface. Her heart galloped beneath his mouth, while her hips moved gently atop him, riding his cock in a slow, erotic motion. 

He waited. Getting lost in the feel of her body against his. Her tits pressing against his chest. Her ass sliding in his lap. Her quim quivering and throbbing around his prick. Her blood boiling beneath his tongue. 

And still he waited. Waited for the surrender. They always surrendered. There was nothing sweeter than the blood of a woman who had surrendered.

His fangs sunk into her flesh with no warning, sharp and swift. The moment he felt her give herself over, the demon struck, soft lips replaced on her tender flesh with razor-sharp fangs.

Buffy gasped and stiffened against him, her body consumed with the deadly pleasure of his invasion.

“Cum for me,” the demon purred against her bloody skin. “Cum while I drain you.”

Buffy was lost in the rapture of him. Penetrated by his fangs and his cock, he took everything she had to give, and she gave it willingly. Her hips jerked madly against his, impaling herself on his sword. She thrust against him, demanding and fervent. Her lifeblood flowed into him until stars exploded all around her, sending sparks of rapture cascading like fireworks over her body.

And then she was there, in that hollow cavern with the little, injured bird. The flame had grown, as she knew it would. It was now a good-sized fire, on its way to becoming a roaring inferno. It burned warm and bright, spreading its light out further and further with each passing moment, driving the darkness back.

She reached a hand out toward the little sparrow and it fluttered gently up to meet her, its broken wing mended.

Buffy laughed, watching it spread its tiny wings as it perched upon her hand. “I told you, William,” she whispered to it, touching a soft kiss to the little brown beak. “You can fly … you’re stronger than the darkness. I know it. Together, we’re stronger than the darkness inside us.”

And with those words she stepped directly into the center of the raging fire.

Sparks flew like dragon’s breath, filling her vision with a billowing spray of sizzling flames. The darkness retreated from around them, clinging to the shadows, watching warily as the light bloomed. Buffy felt the flames licking her body, dancing over her skin like the touch of Spike’s hands, passionate and yearning.  Yearning for the spark of her touch, the fuel of her belief, the flame of her love.

Next to her, the sparrow rose up from the flames, twirling and writhing like a tornado, emerging from the ashes like a Phoenix. Then the rising figure morphed within the effulgent, dancing flames, transforming into the man Buffy had realized must still be inside.

He was Spike, but not. Wavy, light brown hair framed his face, which, at first glance, was a mirror of Spike’s. Then Buffy looked closer. His eyes seemed more tender, more tentative somehow, as they regarded her with awe and wonder. His mouth, too, seemed softer, perhaps less prone to smirking than Spike’s. The corners of it tugged slowly into a breathless smile as he took her in, utterly astonished.

“William,” she breathed, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around him fervently.

Their lips met as the bright, glowing flames blazed around them, encompassing them in the dazzling light they both sought so desperately. They were engulfed by it fully, though fleetingly, as the inferno that she had ignited began to slowly flicker and wane – but not die. It wouldn’t die now; it would only grow. Spike didn’t have to hide it or deny it, didn’t have to snuff it out, didn’t have to be what he wasn’t. He could feed the light with her, stoke the flames, and let it hold the darkness at bay.

The darkness and the light would always be there, yin and yang.  Spike could choose which path to follow, which side to stand on. And for him there was only one path now – the one upon which Buffy tread.

Buffy came back to herself in Spike’s arms, sharing a tender but ardent kiss. She was breathless and glistening, her body filled with little electric shocks of pleasure and release which rippled through her. She still tingled from the touch of the dancing flames and from Spike’s … _ahem_ … double penetration – hard flesh and sharp fangs.

As the kiss broke, she leaned her forehead on his, her eyes closed, panting for air that suddenly seemed in short supply.

“Tell me … you … felt that,” she gasped out, finally pulling back to look into his eyes.

He had. It was written all over his handsome, expressive face, his blue eyes wide with wonder.

A slow smile spread over her lips.

“You stopped … on your own,” she pointed out, catching her breath and touching a finger to her neck. It wasn’t even bleeding. He’d not only stopped but healed it over also.

“I think this deserves a ‘You were right, I was wrong,’ apology,” she proposed. “In writing would be nice so I can hang it on the fridge.”

A breathless, “Bloody hell,” was the best he could do.

“Exactly,” she laughed.

“That was fun! Let’s do it again!” she suggested, suddenly, inexplicably giddy. She began bouncing up and down atop him, making the mattress springs squeak loudly.

“Oh! Bouncy!” she exclaimed, her eyes growing large as saucers with excitement. The Slayer stood up on the mattress then and began jumping enthusiastically, like a kid with a new trampoline on Christmas morning. Her head nearly hit the ceiling with every Slayer-strength jump on the mattress. She pushed back down with her arms, and sprang up with her strong legs, making herself a high-velocity bouncy-ball between the bed and the ceiling.

“Slay—” He was going to tell her to stop, to be careful, but it was too late. He was cut off by the bed collapsing beneath him with a deafening crash.

Buffy fell, bumping her head on the headboard, which was now being held only partially upright by Spike’s back against it.

“Owwww…” she whined, rubbing her head and pouting. “Bad bed!”

“Bloody hell,” Spike repeated, but with a completely different meaning and tone than his earlier declaration. “You’re stoned again.”

“Am not! I’m … I’m … I’m …  hooked on a feeling… high on believing, that you’re in love with meee,” she crooned, badly offkey.

 “Lips are sweet as candy, its taste stays on my mind, boy, you got me thirsty, for another cup of wine,” she continued, standing up and jumping off the downed bed and onto the floor. The Slayer grabbed a hairbrush off the dresser and used it as a microphone, swaying to the unheard music as she sang. Her pink, fluffy bathrobe was still on her shoulders, barely, and it swung around her calves as she moved.

 “Ooga-chaka, ooga-ooga, ooga-chaka, ooga-ooga, ooga-ooga, ooga-ooga, ooga-ooga,” she continued, swirling around to make her bathrobe plume out around her like a cape.

“The bloody needle’s stuck. And had t’ be on that rot Blue Swede added,” Spike groaned, reaching out a hand to poke her in the ribs.

She immediately switched back to,  “I’m hooked on a feeling, high on believing, that you’re in love with meeee.

 “I said, I’m … HOOKED ON A FEELIN’! HIGH ON BELIVIN’! THAT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH MEEEEEEEEE!” she bellowed, putting her whole body into the performance, doubling over at the waist and pumping one fist as she sang into the hairbrush.

When Buffy took a much-needed breath, the pounding on the door could finally be heard, at least by Spike. Buffy was starting to get back into the ooga-chakas again.

“Hold your piss!” he yelled at the door, sliding away from the headboard, letting it crash down the rest of the way onto the mattress.

“What’s going on? Are you okay? What’s that noise? Is that Buffy? _Singing_?” Dawn’s voice came from the other side of the door.

“All fine,” Spike replied, trying his best to get to his feet. He hadn’t actually stood up since the Suvolte war and he wasn’t having a good time of it now. He wasn’t entirely sure the clay demonic cast thing could stand his weight or not, or how painful it would be to try.

“Just a little …uh, community theatre. Buffy’s thinking o’ trying out for a rock opera,” he called back, grimacing as he got to a seated position on the side of the now abnormally-low mattress, which was resting on the box springs, which were resting the floor.

“What was all that banging?”

“Just … the drums. You know … gotta ‘ave drums. Rock opera, yeah? Can’t rightly have rock without banging on the ol’ skins,” Spike explained logically.

 “Lips are sweet as candy, its taste stays on my mind, boy, you got me thirsty, for another cup of wine,” Buffy continued singing as if Dawn and Spike weren’t talking at all.

“Are you sure you guys are okay?” Dawn asked again, clearly not believing a word of what Spike was saying. “Can I come in?”

“Errr … not just now, pet. Buffy’s just gettin’ to the finale … can’t be disturbed, yeah? Bad for the circulation, getting cut off right at the finish like that. Could cause some damage.”

 “All the good love when we're all alone, keep it up boy, yeah, you turn me on,” she sang, sauntering in a half-circle around him like a seductress, swinging her hips and letting her fingers trace lightly over his shoulders, still holding the hairbrush-microphone.

With her within reach, Spike grabbed the Slayer around the middle and tossed her down onto the bed on her back next to him. He rolled over atop her with a cursed oath of pain before clamping one hand over her mouth.

“Let’s play a new game, shall we?” he whispered, his face right above hers, his blue eyes boring into hers.

She smiled behind his hand, her green eyes alight with interest.

“Let’s play ‘shut the bloody hell up’, yeah?”

Buffy frowned and stuck her tongue out of her mouth, licking Spike’s palm.

“Disgusting, that is,” he informed her sternly. “And I should know. Got a bloody PhD in disgusting, I do.”

Buffy giggled behind his palm and then licked it again.

“Cheeky little duck!” he growled in a low voice. “If ya do that again, I’ll bloody…” Spike searched his mind for something to threaten her with. Biting was obviously not a punishment or even remotely scary for her any longer. And fighting? Well … they just did that for fun. He needed something that fit her current mindset.

“… spank your bum!” he finished, glaring at her threateningly.

Buffy’s eyes went wide and she nodded giddily, then her tongue licked his palm again, with extra saliva this time.

“Spike? Are you sure you guys are okay?” Dawn asked after not hearing anything for a few moments.

“I think Buffy just needs a rest now, pet,” he called back. “Rock opera is bloody exhausting.”

“Oh … uhhhh … if you’re sure,” Dawn replied doubtfully.

“No worries!” Spike called back. “She’ll be down in a bit, just gotta have a nip o’ rest,” he assured her.

“Okaayyy,” Dawn agreed grudgingly, and he finally heard her turn and walk away from the door.

“Stop doing that!” he growled at Buffy, pulling his hand away and wiping the spittle on her robe.

“You’re cute when you’re mad,” she informed him, bopping him on the nose with her finger.

Spike glared at her. “Not cute! Don’t do that!”

“Are you going to spank me now?” she wondered, an eager gleam in her green eyes. She started wriggling under him, trying to get free.  “Do I get to spank you, too?

“I don’t have to call you ‘daddy’, do I? Cos that’s just weird. Like, Faith would totally be into that, but—”

“No, no, and no!” Spike admonished her sternly.  

“Not now, at any rate,” he added more quietly. He’d file that little tidbit away for another day.

“So, tell me ‘bout this feeling you’re hooked on,” he prompted, hopefully.

 “Hooked on a feeling,” Buffy began singing again and Spike covered her mouth again.

“None o’ that caterwauling, just tell me,” he instructed, pulling his hand away before she could lick it again.

“You have a bird inside you. A lark! It looks like a sparrow, but it told me: lark. That’s a funny name for a bird, isn’t it? We burned up and turned into a great big bonfire and all the fishies swam off!

“Dru’s not a very good fisher-person. I’m a better bird burner,” she informed him proudly. “So that skinny bitch can just kiss my f-f-fine, fat ass!”

Spike quirked a brow at her, slipping off to one side of her since she seemed to be winding down a bit.

“Pay money t’ see that, I would,” he muttered under his breath before asking, “And that fire in there, it makes you feel … what?”

“Hot! Oh, my God! It was soooo hot! Fire’s like that, ya know? Even meta- meta-phor … make-believe fire. Weird, huh?

“And you’re hot! Did you ever model for Abercrombie? Dawn says maybe, ‘cos you totally could. You are so fucking hot.”

“And all that hotness … it makes you feel?” he prodded again.

“Horny. I just want to fuck you. Can we do it again now? You’re really good at it.”

“In a minute, pet. First, tell me what else … maybe … there’s more than my hot, tight little body that you fancy?”

“Your eyes … they’re so blue. And your hair … it’s so yellow. And your duster … it’s black. So fucking cool!”

“So, hot and cool, eh? And that makes you feel …??”

“Lukewarm?” Buffy answered, brows furrowed, unsure.

Spike sighed and flopped over onto his back, eyes closed, utterly exasperated.

Buffy suddenly yawned widely and turned on her side.

“Was that wrong?” she asked, her voice forlorn.

“No, pet, not wrong,” he assured her.

She curled and snuggled against him where he lay across the demolished bed, his lower legs hanging off the edge, feet on the floor. Spike wrapped one arm around her automatically, and she settled her head on his shoulder with a sigh of her own.

“G’night, Spike,” she muttered, suddenly exhausted, her voice slurring. “I love you.”

Spike’s eyes flew open wide and he lifted up slightly to look down at her face, but she’d already fallen asleep. He stared at her for a long time, wondering if he had been imagining it. Had she really said it?

The words echoed in his mind, over and over, the needle stuck.

_I love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buffy said it! Only … she was stoned at the time. ☹ Will she ever be able to say it without being under the influence? And what about her building up the light within Spike’s soul and freeing William from the metaphorical confines of the little, injured lark? What might that lead to? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply superb -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	27. Green-Eyed Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yummy Sushi Pajamas and Warrior Princesses are unmixy.

* * *

 

Buffy stretched languidly, letting out a little moan as she woke a couple of hours later.

“Sleep well, then, pet?” Spike asked, stirred to wakefulness by her movement next to him.

Buffy just moaned something vaguely affirmative in reply. After a few moments, she sat up gingerly muttering, “My head … ow.”

Buffy dropped her head into her hands and waited for the pounding to stop. It didn’t.

“Ow,” she repeated.

“Hangover or concussion?” Spike wondered, also sitting up slowly, trying not to jostle anything too much.

Buffy made a pitiful noise in her throat, still holding her head in her hands.

“Why have one when I can have both?” she lamented, turning her head slowly to look at him.

Her eyes narrowed as her vision focused. “What’s wrong with you?”

Spike shrugged, looking innocent. “Why? Something look wrong with me?”

“You look … different … happy.”

“Not allowed t’ look happy now?”

“Too happy. Did I do something I don’t remember?”

“Ya sang a lovely ballad, demolished the bed, told me I was lukewarm, and I had yellow hair.” He shrugged. “Oh, invited Dru to kiss your fine, fat arse,” he added brightly.

“My ass is not fat,” she protested, pouting. “Who said my ass was fat?”

“You did, luv.”

“Do you think my ass is fat?” she demanded.

“Your ass is bloody perfect, pet,” he assured her. “Just right fer spanking.”

Buffy’s brows furrowed angrily. “You wouldn’t dare,” she threatened as she reached back to touch her backside, making sure it was un-spanked.

“I would, but I didn’t … _yet_. Said I could, though, if I let ya spank mine.” Spike wagged his brows at her suggestively. “Just say when, pet. I’m yours.”

“ _Hmph_ ,” she muttered, sliding out of the demolished bed.

“Why do I feel like you’re not telling me everything?”

Spike shrugged again, giving her his most innocent, school-boy look.

Buffy flipped on the overhead light, nearly blinding Spike. She surveyed the damage as he put one hand over his eyes to let them adjust.

She sighed. “I guess that’s not fixable, even with the almighty power of duct tape,” she muttered, seeing the demolished legs at the head and foot of the bed that once supported the bed frame.

“I’ll buy ya a new one soon as I can, luv,” he offered, sliding to the edge of the mattress, but not attempting to get up.

Buffy shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Maybe Xander can build something more … Slayer-proof,” she suggested.

“Can I be there when ya ask him?”  Spike wondered brightly. “Can’t wait to see his brains dribble out o’ his ears.”

Buffy snorted a laugh and began rummaging in the dresser for something to put on. Finding her ‘Yummy Sushi’ PJs, she tossed the bottoms at Spike.

“Here … see if these will fit. You can go down to the couch while I clean this up,” she instructed, pulling out underclothes, jeans, and a shirt for herself.

Spike held them up and examined them with a frown.

“Don’t be a baby,” Buffy chastised as she pulled her shirt on. “Your dangly bits won’t shrivel up if you put on my pajamas.”

Spike hmphed, unconvinced. “Be your loss if they do.”

Buffy smothered a smile and came over to help him. She knelt in front of him and held the garment in question down near his feet, opening the waistband wide so he could step into them.

“One foot in here,” she cooed, as if talking to a five-year-old, “And the other in here … see? Isn’t that fun?

“Now, let’s see if we can stand you up,” she continued, pulling the elastic waist up above his knees before standing up to help him rise. “Maybe you better just try it on one foot … I’m not sure about that … thing,” she suggested, tilting her head to indicate the pulsing demonic cast on his foot.

Spike nodded, holding his breath in anticipation … or trepidation.

“This will probably hurt you more than it hurts me,” she told him helpfully, grasping him beneath the arms and lifting straight up.

“Bloody fucking hell,” Spike cursed, stooping over and wrapping his arms around his stomach, which currently had about a dozen knives stuck in it.

“Are you okay?” Buffy asked, wincing, still holding him basically upright … or at least balanced on his good, left foot.

Spike glared up at her without raising up. “What do you think?”

“Sorry,” she muttered, reaching down to pull the PJ bottoms the rest of the way up over his hips.

“Do you want me to carry you?” she asked as she waited for him to get a grip on the pain.

“No, I do not want you to bloody carry me,” Spike growled, taking deep, if unnecessary, breaths.

With each breath, he straightened up a little more. The newly-formed tissue in his abdomen stretching out a bit more with each fractional lift of his torso.

“Can I help?” Buffy wondered, chewing her lip worriedly as she waited.

“No!” came the curt and definite reply from the vampire.

“I wasn’t gonna yank you up straight,” she defended. “I can be slow and gentle.”

Spike gave her another dubious glare.

“Sometimes … maybe,” she added with a pout. “ _You_ said I could, remember?”

“Let’s not test the theory just yet, pet,” he breathed, finally reaching his full height.

Buffy gripped his arm to help steady him while he took a few more deep breaths, letting all the muscles in his torso, which had been growing back beneath the plastic-wrap skin, stretch out.

“I guess we should’ve been doing yoga or something,” Buffy observed.

Spike opened his eyes and quirked a brow at her. “Vampires don’t do _yoga_ ,” he informed her flatly _._

“Well, they probably don’t wear their girlfriend’s yummy sushi pajamas either, but that doesn’t seem to have dusted you yet,” she pointed out.

Spike’s expression changed in an instant, softening into a look of wonder as his eyes met hers. “Girlfriend, is it?”

Buffy rolled her eyes away from his and huffed a breath out, crossing her arms defensively over her chest, but then shrugged. “Well, I’m a girl … and your friend, so …” she hedged.

“Slayerrr,” Spike drawled, challenging her.

Buffy huffed again but looked back to meet his eyes. “I don’t know what we are, Spike. You’re like a hundred years old, so it seems really weird to call you my _boy_ friend, I’m sure that’s another vampire rule—”

“I don’t mind,” he interjected quickly, cutting her off.

They stood in silence for a long moment, their eyes locked. Spike sucked his bottom lip behind his teeth, waiting, breathless.

Then Buffy nodded, and gave him a small smile. “Okay … then I guess …”

Spike cut her off again with a fervent kiss, certain that this day could not get any better.

**~**

Spike had managed to make it down the stairs without the indignity of being carried, but it was a close thing. He discovered that he could put weight on the clay pot on his right foot without pain or damage. Still, he had to lean heavily on the Slayer as his hamstring on the same leg had not yet healed fully, and he still felt like his guts were gonna burst forth from his abdomen, Alien-style, with each jarring step.

He was more than a little relieved when she helped him ease down onto the couch with all his insides still inside and the clay toes still attached, if squirming inside more than ever before.

Buffy went back upstairs to try and do something with the bed. As far as she could see the only thing to do now was just leave the box springs and mattress directly on the floor and toss the headboard and frame in the trash. While she was at it, she stripped the bed and put the sheets in for a badly-needed wash downstairs in the basement. She was pretty sure if she shone one of those ultraviolet black lights on them, the whole room would light up like a disco.

While she was doing that, Spike turned on the TV and found Passions, his favorite soap, which he’d been missing while recuperating upstairs.

The day did get better! Dawn voluntarily brought him a glass of whiskey, sans protein powder, before she headed out to her friend’s house to study. She didn’t even grill him about the rock opera or demolished bed. She did seem to flush pink a few times when he met her eyes, he noticed. Perhaps his ‘rock opera’ excuse had been less than convincing.

It was starting to get a little scary, honestly, so much was going so well. He wondered if the world was set to end tomorrow, but he hadn’t seen a big ‘apocalypse’ appointment marked on Buffy’s calendar, so he assumed not.

Just as Passions was going off, there was a knock on the door. Buffy was still banging around upstairs and didn’t hear it.

“Who is it?” Spike called, turning the TV off.

“Sam.”

Spike frowned. “Captain Cardboard with ya?” he asked through the door.

“Who? Oh! No, Finn … ummm … couldn’t make it. I just came to check your bandages and see how you’re doing.”

“Bloody shame that. Maybe Buffy could’a beat him up a bit more, knocked a few teeth out, improve his looks,” Spike muttered sarcastically under his breath before calling for her to come on in.

The soldier still looked like a tank had flattened her. Her chocolate-brown eyes were surrounded with mottled, purplish-black bruises with some green and yellow discoloration starting to show around the edges. Her nose was still swollen and taped up from being broken. Her lips had more than one painful-looking, swollen split, and crusty lacerations marred her jawline. There were more scabbed-over slashes and dark bruises on her neck that he could see above her commando outfit, and her hands were scratched, bruised, and swollen.

Spike frowned at her as she entered, limping visibly and bent a bit at the waist, unable to straighten up to her full height.

“You alright, pet?” he asked, concerned, sitting up a bit straighter on the couch as he watched her.

“I was going to ask you the same thing, but you look … amazing,” the soldier replied, stepping between the coffee table and the couch and sitting down on the table to face him. “Buffy said you were awake, but … wow, I didn’t expect this!”

Spike reached out a hand and touched her right cheek lightly, just below her swollen, discolored eyes. “I’m sorry,” he breathed.

Sam shook her head, giving him a wan smile. “It’s not your fault. If not for you, I wouldn’t be here at all, so, thank you. I know it’s not enough, but …”

“It’s everything,” Spike assured her, returning her smile.

“I’m … I’m sorry about Riley, too … things he said, he—” she began, but Spike stopped her with a wave of his hand.

“’S alright, pet. Known him longer than you have, I’d wager. I’m used t’ him over-compensating for his … _shortcomings_ ,” Spike assured her with a smirk. “Gotta feel a bit o’ pity for the dick-less prat, I reckon.”

Sam started to roll her eyes, but the pain around her eye sockets stopped the automatic motion. “Well, still … I … I talked to him. I don’t think he’ll bother you again … well, I hope not.”

Spike nodded. “Appreciate that, luv. Won’t hold it against ya if he does. Reckon Buffy’ll have a bit to say in that happy circumstance though,” he predicted, half-hoping the git was stupid enough to try something so he could see Buffy beat Finn up again. Bloody delicious.

“So, how long will ya be staying in Sunnyhell, the vacation hotspot of demon-dom, then?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Probably another couple of weeks, at least,” she replied, thankful that Spike had shrugged off the whole Riley thing so easily.  She was afraid Spike would hold her husband’s actions against her. “We got medical leave until we’re cleared for duty again,” the soldier explained. “Might take Finn a bit longer to get over what the Slayer did than for me to get over the demons.”

“Ironic, that, eh?” Spike observed. “I’ll take battling Suvolte over Slayer any day.”

Sam snorted a laugh through her broken nose. That hurt too. “Thought fighting Slayers was your thing, William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers.”

“Met my match in Buffy, I reckon,” Spike admitted.  “Like I said—”

“’If you can’t beat them, shag them,’” Sam filled in with a chuckle, remembering his story.

Spike laughed with her. “Turns out, it’s a bit less lethal for both parties.”

Sam laughed again. “Only a bit?”

Spike shrugged. “If it was safe, the dance wouldn’t be any fun, now would it, pet?” he asked, giving her a wicked smile.

Sam laughed lightly and shook her head.  “Is everything a dance to you?”

Spike gave a small shrug, but nodded, his eyes gleaming. “Life, death, love, hate. Every deep feeling is a dangerous dance, can shred ya, shatter ya, but it’s the only way to live. If ya don’t take chances, step onto the floor, face the perils of this world, and feel it all deep in your bones, then you aren’t livin’, you’re just surviving.”

Sam nodded, tucking a strand of her long, brunette hair back behind one ear. “I’ll remember that,” she assured him.

“So … do you actually dance?” the medic wondered, lowering her gaze from his and chewing her split bottom lip adorably.

Spike tilted his head, his gaze softening with her nervous gesture, which looked incongruous on the soldier’s battered face.

“Been known to,” he admitted.

“I just wondered because … the wedding next week. You know? Xander and Anya? Well … I mean, Xander invited us – me and Riley. Xander said something about needing more actual humans on his side of the aisle or something,” she revealed with a nervous laugh. “So, I just thought, since you look so much better … and … and if you were going, maybe I could have a dance?”

“Will Finn have any guns or stakes with ‘im?” Spike wondered, not completely in jest.

Sam laughed, looking back up at the vampire. “I’m pretty sure they’d clash with formal attire,” she assured him.

“In that case, I could probably pencil ya in on my dance card, pet,” Spike agreed, catching and holding her eyes with his for just a moment longer than was comfortable for her.

Sam cleared her throat and looked away. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“The pleasure will be mine, I’m sure,” Spike replied, gallantly.

Sam cleared her throat again and turned her eyes toward the bandages covering Spike’s chest and arms. “I thought I’d check your wounds, see if any of the bandages need removing or changing,” she offered, waving a hand at her medical bag on the table next to her.

“Think the little stuff’s nearly healed,” he told her, touching a hand to some of the lesser wounds. “Stomach’s still a bitch, and m’ leg … and that bloody foot.”

“Can I check?” she asked.

Spike shrugged. “Yer the doc. Have at it, pet.”

Sam began with his foot, lifting it up and examining the pulsing demonic clay closely. “I think it’s working,” she said after a bit. “Have you felt anything moving near your toes?”

“Yeah, felt bloody queer, it did,” Spike told her, wrinkling his nose a bit remembering it.

She nodded, running her hands over the smooth, white cocoon that was incubating new flesh beneath. “When it’s ready, the hard shell will start to crack and it’ll fall off. Don’t freak out, that’s what it’s supposed to do. It’s amazing … it’s working so fast.”

“No little alien’s gonna come skittering out, then, is it?” Spike wondered.

Sam laughed and shook her head. “I’m fairly confident that will not happen.”

“ _Fairly confident_?” Spike questioned with an arched brow.

Sam shrugged. “Did I mention that I’ve never actually tried this on a vampire before?”

Spike frowned and looked dubiously at his foot, which Sam had placed gently on the coffee table beside her. The squirming seemed to suddenly intensify and become much more disturbing. “Bloody rich, that is,” he muttered as Sam turned her attention to his other wounds.

Sam began removing the bandages off Spike’s arms and torso that were no longer needed. On the deeper wounds, she pressed against the artificial skin tentatively with her fingers, checking to see if it still hurt and if the tissue beneath had filled in. Most of them had, except for the huge wound in his abdomen, which was still extremely tender and clearly not fully healed.

She removed the layer of plastic from the outside of the artificial skin grafts on the areas that had healed, exposing new, bright pink skin and fully-formed muscle tissue beneath.

“This is amazing,” she murmured, running her hand lightly over a patch of new flesh on his chest. “It’s so smooth … and pink. Why is it pink like that?”

Spike looked down at it and shrugged. “Slayer blood, I reckon. Probably fade back t’ my natural fine porcelain when the diet changes.”

“Is that what you call your complexion? I was thinking … Tuscan marble, you know, like Michelangelo’s David?”

Spike quirked a brow at her. “Gave it some thought, have you?” he teased.

Sam blushed bright red and tucked another strand of hair behind her ear, not meeting his eyes. “Well … no, I mean … it was just … what it reminded me of.”

“My skin? Or my hot, tight little body?” Spike continued teasing, curling his tongue against his teeth.

The medic spluttered and coughed, trying to continue checking his wounds. “Well … errr … both, I guess,” she finally answered.

Spike smirked. “Think it’ll get back to ‘David’ quality anytime soon, then?” he wondered.

“Seems well on the way,” she muttered under her breath, still not meeting his eyes.

Sam prodded gently against the last and largest wound on his torso. It was located on the right side of his lower stomach and had started off the size of a bowling ball. The demons had chewed all the way through to his peritoneal cavity, and literally spilled the vampire’s guts.

“It’s healing, it’s definitely smaller,” she announced, tracing her fingers in from the original edges.

Spike grimaced in pain when she hit a particularly tender spot.

“Oh! Sorry,” she apologized, pulling her hand back.

“I just … wanted to see …” she began, her voice trailing off as her fingers dropped down to the lower edge of the wound, slipping beneath the yummy sushi pajamas, not too far from Spike’s dangly bits.

Buffy cleared her throat loudly as she reached the bottom of the stairs behind Sam. “Can I ask what you’re doing with my boyfriend?”

Sam jumped, yanking her hand out of Spike’s pants, standing up, and whirling around in surprise.

“Nothing! Just … checking him out,” Sam explained.

Buffy’s brows went up, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Like what you see?”

“Yes, it’s amazing …” Sam began, but then saw Buffy’s gaze harden. “I mean, no! I mean … I was just checking his wounds. I wasn’t checking _him_ out, I was checking … umm … _them_ out,” she spluttered.

“I could see that,” the Slayer snarled. “With your hands down his pants. Trust me, I’ve checked that particular area thoroughly, everything there is in perfect working order … _so far_.”

“Buffy, wasn’t like that, pet,” Spike interrupted, pleading Sam’s case. 

“You don’t want to talk right now,” she warned him, shooting him a death glare. “I heard you puking charm all over her.”

“ _Puking charm_?” Spike retorted indignantly. “Is that even possible?”

“It is. And you were doing it,” Buffy assured him, before turning her attention back to the puke-ee.

Sam took a deep breath and spread her hands out in a conciliatory gesture. “I was just seeing how he was healing. I was able to take off some of the plastic and the bandages. It’s really amazing what you’ve been able to do for him,” the soldier explained in a placatory tone.

“Pretty sure there were no bandages between his legs … but he might need some before this is over,” Buffy pointed out.

“Between his …” Sam looked back at Spike and then to Buffy, the medic’s face returning to the bright red she’d sported earlier. “I wasn’t … no! I was just checking that abdominal wound to see how much it had healed.”

When Buffy didn’t immediately reply, Sam stepped back near Spike and demonstrated, but this time on the outside of the yummy sushi. “Here … see? It’s definitely smaller,” she announced, looking up at the Slayer. “There’s still about a six-inch gap though, right through to the viscera, so we can’t take this bandage off yet.

“Also, what has grown back seems abnormally stiff and inflexible compared to the other tissue, which could be a problem. I can suggest some stretches that I think might help with that,” Sam offered.

Buffy quirked a brow at Spike, looking past Sam. “Like _yoga_?”

“Yeah, exactly,” Sam agreed.

“Bloody hell,” Spike groaned. “You birds are gonna turn me into a right ponce. Won’t be fit t’ fight a bloody gnat.”

“Have you ever done yoga?” Sam asked, looking down at him. “It’s not for sissies.”

“Does Finn do it?” Spike wondered, narrowing his eyes at the soldier.

“No. Well, he tried it once and said he was gonna die afterwards. He won’t do it anymore,” Sam explained.

“Well, yoga might not be all bad then,” Spike acquiesced, sniffing.

“Great! I can come by whenever you want and show you…”

“That’s okay, _I_ can show him. Just send a note and let me know the poses you think will help most,” Buffy cut in.

“Oh. Right. Sure,” Sam agreed, nervously tucking another strand of hair back. “Ummm, I didn’t get to check his legs yet.”

“I think you’ve checked Spike out enough,” Buffy insisted, walking toward the door.

“Uh, okay,” Sam stammered, leaning over and gathering up her bag. “I’m really glad you’re doing so well,” she said to Spike, catching his eyes with hers. “Really glad,” she added sincerely.

“Thanks for the concern, pet,” Spike replied, holding her gaze for the space of three of her heartbeats, enough to make her uncomfortable again.

Buffy cleared her throat meaningfully as she opened the front door. “Thanks,” she offered flatly as Sam hurried out, but the Slayer closed the door before the medic could reply.

“I’m not sure how it was with you and Dru, but I’m not the sharing type,” Buffy announced, giving Spike a scorching glare.

“You’re cute when you’re jealous,” Spike teased, his blue eyes glittering with mischief.

“I’m _not_ jealous.”

“Bloody hell you aren’t. We weren’t doin’ anything but havin’ a civil conversation and examining my very heroic wounds.”

“You puked all that sinister vampire charm all over her. She’s probably squishing as she walks right now,” Buffy accused.

“Again with the puking?! I was just bein’ nice. And you’re jealous. Admit it.”

“She had her hand down your fucking pants, Spike! You know, that place where you’re supposed to keep your dick to yourself?”

“Was nothing more than a medical professional examining a patient,” he sniffed.  “Her hand wasn’t anywhere near my jewels. My dick can barely keep up with _you_. What would I do with Xena?” Spike argued.

“Oh, you’ve got a pet name for her now? She’s a Warrior Princess? More like Mata Hari.   _Hmph_.”

“I actually knew Mata Hari. Met ‘er in Paris, and I can assure you there’s no comparison, luv.”

Buffy glared daggers at him. “I’m sure I don’t want to know how you knew Mata Hari.”

Spike considered for a moment, his lips pursed. “Probably not,” he agreed.

“Buffy,” Spike cajoled softly, lowering his foot off the table and reaching a hand out for her to sit down next to him. “Me callin’ the girl Xena – I’ve got names for everyone. You know that. Doesn’t mean anything.”

She grudgingly stepped around the table to the couch and petulantly plopped down next to him. Reluctantly, she let him pull her against him, holding her close with one arm around her shoulders.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I love only you. I want only you. Need only you. If I’ve got a soul, it’s you, Buffy. You’re my heart, my world, my everything.”

Buffy blinked back tears that suddenly stung her eyes and she nodded. “Sorry. I guess I … overreacted. I just … you were there with the smiling and the head tilting and the charm. And I swear it looked like she was feeling you up.”

“She wasn’t,” Spike assured her, touching a kiss to her temple. “And, if she was, do ya think I’d just sit here and let her?”

“You couldn’t really stop her … with the chip and all,” Buffy reasoned. “She could have her way with you and you wouldn’t be able to stop her.”

“I’d scream like a nancy-boy so you could come rescue my virtue, pet,” he assured her, holding back a grin.

Buffy hmphed again, but leaned back against Spike, relaxing a bit.

“And I wasn’t tryin’ to puke charm on her, I was just being nice,” Spike explained. “She did patch me up pretty good, yeah?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Buffy admitted, grudgingly.

“Didn’t know it’d bother ya, pet. Reckoned she’d seen it all before, yeah? When she made me into a mummy?” he pointed out.

Buffy shrugged noncommittally. “But you weren’t … charming then. You were all chewed up and spit out. Honestly, your dangly bits were the least of our concern.”

“Pfffft!” Spike disagreed. “The way you make use of ‘em, my dangly bits should be your first concern.”

“So, are you saying I’m overtaxing your resources?” she wondered, reaching a hand down to gently cup his danglies through the PJs.

“Never, luv. Always have enough for you,” he assured her. “Now admit it, you were jealous,” Spike prompted, nuzzling against her neck gently.

Buffy huffed out an exasperated breath, but whispered, “Maybe. A little.”

“Cute when you’re jealous, you are,” he asserted again, smiling, his heart warming at the thought of the Slayer being jealous over him.

“Yeah, sure, it’s all green-eyed cuteness until someone gets their balls ripped off,” she warned, possibly teasing, possibly not.

“See above regarding dangly usage. Be your loss as much as mine, pet, just keep that in mind,” Spike replied, still smiling.

Buffy snorted a laugh and turned her face to his. “I guess I’ll just need to make sure they’re drained regularly and thoroughly then, won’t I? Just to make sure you aren’t forced into any compromising situations.”

Spike touched his lips to hers and murmured, “Brilliant plan, luv,” before kissing her deeply.

This day was definitely the best day of his unlife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buffy doesn’t seem to remember her little revelation, or she’s not admitting it, but Spike isn’t letting that bring him down. Who could really blame Sam for a little squishiness after having that sexy Spike charm puked all over her. Jealous Buffy is certainly something he never thought he’d see – and she wasn’t even stoned! Let’s hope no aliens squirm out of his foot.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply marvelous -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	28. Dr. Phil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Would things have been different in the lives of the Scoobies, if, in one pivotal moment, someone had been there to offer solid advice on life and love?
> 
> Note: Some dialogue directly from the episode: Hell’s Bells.

****

* * *

 

**A few days later. The Bison’s Lodge. Anya and Xander’s Wedding.**

Together, Buffy and Spike dragged the dead demon that had attacked the bride out of the main hall where Anya and Xander’s wedding was about to be performed at the Bison’s Lodge. It had been decided by Anya that leaving it on the floor and covering the body with flowers wouldn’t really make it blend in any better. Plus, Willow had pointed out it would become a tripping hazard when the reception began.

They stashed it in one of the side rooms of the lodge and pulled the door closed, both of them leaning on it heavily, trying to catch their breath. Or, well … Buffy trying to catch her breath, Spike trying to get the pain in his stomach and leg to subside back to a dull ache.

“Are you okay?” she asked him, as he grimaced against the stabbing knives that still shot through his two worst injuries if he moved wrong. And, fighting a giant, time-traveling demon then dragging the corpse away definitely qualified.

“Brilliant,” Spike replied, grinning despite the pain. “Haven’t ‘ad a good brawl in an age.”

Buffy snorted a short laugh, looking down at her bridesmaids’ dress in some dismay.

“Sorry ‘bout the dress, luv,” he offered, seeing the direction of her gaze. “It’s not too bad though, just a rip on the seam.”

Buffy looked up then, brows raised. “Yeah, that’s the problem. No blood. No guts. I actually could’ve changed into something less radioactive if that stupid demon had had the decency to bleed on me.”

Spike finally stood up straight, the pain subsiding, and stepped in front of her. He still walked a little tentatively on his right foot, only because he still felt things squirming around in there from time to time and it was a little stiff.  The demonic clay cast had cracked and fell off two days ago. His foot looked … normal. No alien emerged. Go team!

 “I think you look lovely. You’re glowing. Dress brings out the green in your eyes, it does,” he observed, running the back of his freshly-bruised knuckles lightly down her cheek.

“Yeah, pretty sure that’s the radiation emanating from it,” she joked, giving him a smile.

“You look quite dapper, though,” Buffy observed, brightening. She lovingly smoothed the lapels of his dark blue dress jacket and straightened his tie, which was the same blue but with small triangles of yellow dotted across it.

“Sharp dressed men turn me on,” she admitted. “And you in blue?” she rolled her eyes heavenward with a dreamy sigh, placing her right hand flat on the French blue dress shirt beneath the jacket. “Irresistible.”

Spike smirked. “Turning ya on, am I? Well, we’ll just have to see what we can do about that, won’t we?”

Buffy bit her bottom lip, smiling, and lifting her eyes back to meet his. “We will. If we survive this wedding,” she agreed.

They stood in silence a moment, lost in each other’s eyes, as they waited for the wedding music to begin, their cue to rejoin the gathering.

“Somethin’s amiss,” Spike observed when nothing happened for a few moments.

Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “Of course it is. I’ll go see. Can you look for Dawn and make sure she’s okay after that brawl?”

“No worries, pet,” he agreed, as they both turned and headed different ways out of the corridor.

* * *

 

Buffy hurried out of the hallway, searching the large room for her friends: the bride and groom. This wedding was a long time coming. Having been rudely interrupted by the annual apocalypse and her untimely death several months before. She wasn’t going to let anything stop it now. Not demons. Not apocalypses – apocalyp-ti?  Nothing. Her friends were getting married today, goddamn it, come hell or high water or wedding-crashing demons.

She heard their voices before she saw them, and the tone of it sent up bright, red flags for the Slayer. Xander and Anya were standing in the vestibule, near the front entrance, talking solemnly. Buffy stopped just to the side of the alcove and listened a moment.

“Hey. It's okay. It's all over now, he's dead, and it was just smoke and mirrors,” Anya assured her husband-to-be. “He was a demon. He wanted to hurt me by making you hate me. Whatever he showed you, it wasn’t real.”

“I know,” Xander replied desolately.

“So ... we're ready now. Let's get married!” Anya prompted brightly.

Buffy peeked around the corner of the vestibule in time to see Xander pull his lovely bride back as Anya tried to turn toward the main hall, the big man shaking his head miserably. The grim look on her friend’s face sent those red flags waving madly, like a cape before a bull.

The Slayer wasted no time. She turned, lifted her radioactive skirt, and plunged into the wedding hall, immediately finding Spike standing with Dawn and a young male demon with black ram’s horns growing from his forehead.

“SPIKE! I need you! _Now_!” she called urgently.

Spike looked up sharply and – ignoring the pain in his leg and abdomen, and the fear that his foot might squirm out of his shoe – ran the short distance to her side.

“Hurry!” she ordered, grabbing his hand and hauling him bodily back to the vestibule where her friends still stood talking.

She didn’t wait to hear what was being said as she entered. She could tell by the look on both of their faces that it wasn’t good, so she just plowed ahead, bull in a china shop, Slayer-style.

Skidding to a stop next to the unhappy couple, she ordered, “Both of you stop talking! Not another word!”

Then, turning to her boyfriend – oh, that still sounded strange even inside her own head, “Spike, you know that thing you do? I need you to do it with Xander. Right now!”

Anya and Xander did both stop talking – more from shock than because she told them to – looking up in surprise at the blondes’ uninvited intrusion on their private conversation.

Spike caught himself on Buffy’s shoulder, his skid halted abruptly, sending daggers through his belly and leg. Putting the pain aside with considerable effort, he stood up straight, looking from Buffy to Xander and back again, one brow raised.

“Sorry, luv, don’t really have a taste fer doing my _thing_ with chunky brunettes this year,” he pronounced, pursing his lips and hooking his thumbs over his belt smugly.

A red flush rose in Buffy’s cheeks, clashing harshly with her green dress. “Not _that_ thing!” she hissed. “The talking about love thing! You know, the Dr. Phil thing you do where you butt into everyone’s love life and offer unsolicited advice which is usually painfully accurate and disturbingly perceptive?”

“I don’t need advice on love from an evil, soulless, monst—” Xander’s words were cut off by a sharp slap across the cheek from the Slayer.

Despite her not using anything near her full strength, Xander’s head snapped to the side violently. He cupped his cheek reflexively with one hand, and cursed in pain, bent over at the waist as stars swam before his eyes.

“Nice! Do it again,” Spike urged Buffy, his eyes gleaming.

“Shut up, Spike,” Buffy warned before turning back to Xander who was now standing back up and glaring at her, most of the stars having floated away from his vision.

“This _man_ knows more about living and more about love than everyone in this building put together!” Buffy asserted. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll listen to him! You’re about to do something very, _very_ stupid, I can see it in your eyes, Alexander Harris!”

Xander opened his mouth to protest, but Buffy cut him off. “I know because I’ve seen it before too many times – usually looking right back at me from the mirror.

“Now, you need to just shut up and listen to Spike,” she ordered, taking a light grip on Anya’s arm and turning to go.

“What if I need ya t’ slap him again, pet?” Spike asked hopefully as the two women began to walk away.

Buffy turned a sharp gaze on Xander. “He won’t, will he?” she demanded.

The brunette glowered at her and then at Spike, still rubbing his stinging cheek, but finally shook his head, outnumbered and outgunned.

Buffy nodded sharply and led Anya away, assuring the distraught ex-demon that everything would be alright.

“There’s nothing you can say to change my mind,” Xander stated resolutely before Spike could even start. “I’m not marrying Anya today … or … or any day.”

Spike shrugged. “Don’t really care, do I? But Buffy does. She cares about you for some unfathomable reason.”

Xander gave him a sharp look, eyes narrowed into slits. “I could say the same thing about you, apparently, Mr. Plus-One.”

Spike smirked. “Not unfathomable. I can tell ya exactly why: I keep my bleedin’ promises, you stupid git.”

Xander jerked back as if he’d been slapped again, and Spike took a step closer to the larger man.

“When you put that ring on her finger, you promised the demon girl … errr … _Anya_ , that you’d give her your heart, freshly ripped from yer chest, still warm, beating, and bloody. What’s stopping you from making good on that?”

“I didn’t exactly promise anything quite that Hannibal Lecter-y,” Xander argued, his eyes flicking to his mother and father, still arguing by the bar. His father getting more and more drunk and insolent by the moment.

Spike pursed his lips, following Xander’s gaze, then looked back.

“Worried about the future, are you? Think you’re a chip off the old block? And what if you are?”

“Then I don’t want to hurt Anya that way … I don’t want her to be … doomed and trapped with … with a nasty, horrible drunk, like my mother is,” Xander admitted, still watching his parents with disdain.

“Did it ever occur to you that you need Anya to _keep you from becoming_ your father? What if you’re tossing away your one chance to be a better man?”

Xander looked back at Spike then, doubt creasing his brows. “Whaddya mean?”

Spike sighed. “You and me, we’re not that different, mate,” he asserted.

“We’re _nothing alike_ —” Xander began to object, venom in his tone.

“Don’t make me get the Slayer!” the vampire growled sternly, pointing a warning finger in the larger man’s face.

Xander slapped Spike’s hand away but subsided with a glower.

“We need a light in the darkness to guide us,” Spike continued fervently. “We need a life raft to cling to or we’ll sink into the inky blackness, into the bottle, into … into evil.”

“Well, you’d know all about that, being an evil monster and all,” Xander spat.

“You’re bloody right I would,” Spike retorted sharply, glaring at the bigger man. “And that…” Spike lifted his arm out and jabbed a finger toward Mr. Harris without turning his eyes from Xander. “… _is_ an evil monster. At least I know what I am … That monster you call a father doesn’t even know what he is. He can’t see the bloody light cos he doesn’t know he needs to look for it.”

Xander opened his mouth to protest, but stopped as he looked over at his parents again. His mother looked horrified, mortified, teetering on the verge of tears by something his father was saying. Xander’s heart seemed to rise up into his throat, choking off whatever he’d been ready to fire back at Spike. He never wanted that to be him and Anya. He never wanted to do that to her. Never wanted to be … an evil monster, lost in the dark not knowing he should be looking for the light.

“Anya is your light. It’s clear to all yer friends. Why can’t you let yourself see it? Can’t ya feel it in your bones? In your blood? In your heart? In that spot in the pit of yer stomach that yearns for her touch, her smile, her soft sigh against ya in the dark?”

Xander blinked back moisture that had suddenly sprung to his eyes and turned to look in the direction Buffy and Anya had gone. Willow, Tara, Buffy, and Dawn were gathered around the bride-to-be, consoling and calming her. His lover, his best friend, stood like a white beacon in a sea of radioactive green, calling to him, tightening that spot in his gut like a spring coiling to the breaking point.

The big man swallowed hard, turning back to Spike. “What if I’m beyond saving?” he rasped out in a raw whisper.

“If _I’m_ not beyond saving, then you’re not, and the Slayer believes in both of us,” Spike assured him. “Our women are strong. They’re filled with light and goodness and a single-minded stubbornness that would make a mule bow down at their feet.”

Xander let out a small chuckle at that, swiping hastily at his glistening eyes.

“They won’t give up on us,” Spike continued. “We owe it to them to not give up on ourselves.”

Spike took one step closer to the bigger man, getting right in his face, and lowered his voice to a rumbling whisper. “You’ve got the bloody world by the balls. I’d give _anything_ t’ be standing in your shoes, on the verge of marrying the woman that I love. Stop being a coward, grow up, and keep your soddin’ promises. Be a man.”

Spike took one small step back, staring hard into Xander’s shimmering brown eyes, challenging him to grow up in that single, pivotal, life-defining moment. Be a man.

Xander’s head swam with Spike’s words. Could Anya save him? Could he save himself? Could he be a man worthy of her light?  Or was he a monster, doomed to repeat the mistakes of his parents? His eyes shifted between his parents and Anya, thoughts colliding and careening around his worried, frightened heart.

“Jump. She’ll catch you. She’s your light,” Spike implored him after a few silent moments.

Xander looked back at the vampire and took a deep, cleansing breath, letting it out slowly. Finally, he nodded once. He was a man, not a monster.

Spike gave a curt nod back, clasped the brunette’s elbow firmly and guided him out of the entryway and into the main room. When he caught Buffy’s eye across the room, he raised one hand above his head, circling a finger in the air to indicate lift off.

She nodded understanding, and hastily began making sure Anya’s dress, makeup, and hair were perfect, as they should be on this once-in-a-lifetime day.

Spike led the groom up the aisle side-by-side, as if he were giving the git away, and the Wedding March began to play.

“Just look into her eyes. You’ll see everything you need in them,” Spike advised in a low voice, reaching the altar and positioning a slightly dazed, but resolute, Xander in his proper place.

Spike stayed next to him, even though he was not part of the wedding party and not dressed in Chernobyl green. Xander felt an odd sense of assurance from the vamp’s presence. _Jump. She’ll catch you._

He jumped.

* * *

 

“I had seen what love could do to people, and it was ... hurt and sadness. Alone was better. And then, suddenly there was you, and ... you _knew_ me,” Anya vowed at the altar, gazing deeply into Xander’s dark eyes, their hands clasped in front of the minister.

Buffy’s eyes met Spike’s across the short distance from her bridesmaid’s position, which was on the other side of the happy couple from where the vampire stood next to Xander. Their gazes never wavered as Anya continued, sometimes rambling, sometimes funny, but, in the end, always heartfelt.

“You saw me, and it was this ... _thing_ I couldn’t explain. You make me feel safe and warm. So, I get it now. I finally get love, Xander. I really do.

“I entrust you with my heart. Take care of my heart, won't you please? Take care of it because, it's all that I have. And, if you let me, I'll take care of your heart, too. Forever and ever, amen.”

The gathered friends and family chuckled, but also wiped a tear or two, feeling her words in their hearts.

“Your turn,” she prompted giddily, bouncing a little on her toes, when Xander didn’t immediately begin speaking the second she was done.

Spike and Buffy chortled too, the corners of their eyes crinkling, and their locked gazes gleaming with the emotion flowing between them across the short distance.

Spike wondered if this could be them one day. Would Buffy ever be his bride? His heart swelled at the images the thought conjured, of how beautiful she’d be, of how she would glow with happiness, and he felt like he might melt right there where he stood.

 Xander cleared his throat, his eyes still locked with Anya’s.

“I’m probably not a very good man,” he began, squeezing her hands tighter in his.

Anya shook her head slightly in denial, and Xander gave her a small smile of gratitude.

“I’m not the man I want to be, but you make me believe I can be better. You give me the strength to endeavor to be a good man, a strong man, a brave man. Without you, I’d be lost in the darkness. You’re my light, my sun and moon, and I trust you with my heart. It’s all I’ve got. Please take care of it, and I’ll take care of yours. Forever and ever, amen,” he finished with a smile, echoing her words back to her.

Spike’s eyes blurred for a moment as he looked into Buffy’s. Did she know those were his words, as well? He’s not a good man, he knew, but she made him want to be better. Her light kept him from the darkness, kept him from drowning. Her light was the only thing that could save him.

Buffy gave Spike a knowing smile as the happy couple kissed and the crowd cheered. Then the music was playing again, and Xander and Anya retreated down the aisle as husband and wife.

Spike and Buffy, standing next in line beside the newlyweds, followed them in the bridal parade back down the aisle. He offered her his elbow, and she took it, smiling up at him, glowing really. Her hand curled around his arm and she gave him a gentle squeeze conveying appreciation and pride and affection all at once.

Spike looked up at Xander in his tux and Anya in her gown and felt a dream bloom inside his unbeating, romantic-fool, love’s bitch of a heart. Could that ever be him and Buffy? Would he ever be the man she deserved? He didn’t know, but he owed it to himself, and to her, to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of the reception next with a little surprise! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply fabulous -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	29. I Wanna Sex You Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some surprises are in store at the wedding reception. 
> 
> Songs Referenced in chapter:  
> I Wanna Sex You Up, Color Me Badd  
> Al Green- Let's Stay Together

 

 

[ I Wanna Sex You Up, Color Me Badd](https://youtu.be/kO6BtpIzIiM)

_Girl you make me feel real good_  
We can do it ‘til we both wake up  
Girl you know I'm hooked on you  
And this is what I'll do

_I wanna sex you_  
All night  
You make me feel good  
I wanna rub you down  
I wanna sex you up

_Let me take off all your clothes_  
Disconnect the phone so nobody knows  
Let me light a candle  
So we can make it better  
Makin' love until we drown

_Girl you know it feels real good_  
We can do it ‘til we both wake up  
Girl you know I'm hooked on you  
And this is what I'll do

_I wanna sex you up_  
Makin' love until we drown  
I wanna sex you up

_All I wanna do is_  
I wanna sex you up  
All night  
Girl you make me feel good  
I wanna rub you down  
I wanna sex you up

_Make sweet lovin' all night long_  
I wanna sex you up  
Feels so right it can't be wrong  
Don't be shy girl rescue me  
I wanna sex you up  
Open up your heart and I'll set you free

 

Spike stood on the edge of the dance floor with Buffy, holding her back to his front, his arms wrapped loosely around her, as the newlyweds danced their first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Harris.

“’I Want to Sex You Up’ wouldn’t exactly be my top choice for our first dance,” Buffy commented, despite swaying gently with Spike to the slow, sexy groove.

“Why not, pet? After all, you do it any chance ya get.”

Buffy elbowed him in the ribs, but not too hard. He was still healing, after all.

Spike ‘whoofed’ out a breath and bent over a bit at the waist, leaning into her, over-acting just a little.

“I don’t hear you complaining about it,” Buffy countered, turning her face to look up at him over her shoulder.

Spike smirked. “Never will, either,” he assured her.

“Reckon ya can’t accuse the demon girl o’ being subtle,” Spike offered. “’Course, can’t say it’s cliché. Not like the song I recall _someone –_ who definitely wasn’t me— chose for _our_ wedding.”

Buffy laughed. “It was the spell,” she claimed.

“Yeah, keep tellin’ yourself that, pet,” Spike teased.

“I still have your ring,” Buffy admitted, watching Anya and Xander dance alone on the floor. It did her heart good to see them together. She just felt in her heart that they belonged together.

“Not exactly your style, pet. Why’d ya save it?”

Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know … souvenir I guess.”

“Had the taste of Buffy in my mouth for days after that,” Spike revealed.

Buffy laughed. “I bet you tried really hard to get rid of it, too, didn’t you?”

Spike shrugged. “Not too hard,” he confessed. “Souvenir, I reckon.”

Buffy laughed again and turned in his arms to face him. “Thank you for what you did for Xander and Anya. What did you say to him?”

Spike shrugged again. “Just the truth: he’s a wanker and he better marry the bird while he had the chance, or he’d be sleeping with nothing but his fist for company till he went blind.”

Buffy chuckled. “You did not,” she countered, shaking her head.

Spike sniffed. “Well, can’t be givin’ away my secrets, can I? Doctor-patient privilege, and all.”

“Well, thank you,” Buffy whispered, coming up onto her toes to kiss him softly. “You’re my hero.”

“Not the wind beneath your wings?” he teased.

Buffy grinned. “That too.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Xander ducked into one of the private dressing rooms at the Bison’s Lodge and closed the door behind himself quickly and silently. He leaned his forehead against it, holding his breath as he waited for Halfrek to walk past. He’d been avoiding her most of the night. He’d spent fifteen minutes hearing, in painfully gruesome detail, about how she’d cursed a cheating husband with pestilent boils in a place that made Xander’s balls pull up into his body. Since then, he’d run the opposite direction every time he saw her. He had no desire to hear more – his balls were still in hiding, and he really thought he’d need them later tonight for the honeymoon.

“Hidin’ from the missus already?” a deep voice came from behind the big man, making Xander squeak like a mouse and spin around.

“Spike! You scared the shit out of me! What are you doing in here!?”

Spike smirked from the chair he was sprawled in and held up a bottle of Laphroaig scotch whiskey. “On my break. Ya know, you are getting a bill for my services t’night. Bouncer and therapist.”

Xander rolled his eyes, but relaxed a bit. “That’s a fifty-dollar bottle of whiskey – I think that should cover it,” he asserted, taking a seat next to Spike.

Spike looked at the bottle and shrugged, lifting it to his lips and taking a long swallow. Lowering the bottle, Spike wiped his lips with the back of his hand and looked back at the younger man. “Who ya hidin’ from, then?”

Xander sighed and reached for the bottle, pulling it from Spike’s grip. “That Halfrek woman. You know her?”

Spike let Xander take the bottle and shrugged. “We’re … acquainted.”

“She’s freakin’ scary,” Xander confided, wiping the mouth of the bottle with the hem of his jacket before taking a much shorter swallow of the potent potable than Spike had. “She really likes to tell me about how she’s cursed all these guys – castrated them! Jesus! It makes my balls hurt and my dick shrivel up. Not exactly the thing you want to happen on your wedding day!”

Spike shifted uncomfortably in his seat, adjusted things below his belt, and took the bottle back from Xander. “She’s a bloody bitch,” Spike agreed, mimicking Xander by wiping the mouth of the bottle with the hem of his jacket. “And I should know...” he muttered before taking another long drink.

“Huh?” Xander asked, turning confused eyes on the vampire.

Spike waved it off, handing the bottle back to Xander. “Nothin’.”

Xander took another drink, forgetting to wipe the bottle off, and handed it back to Spike.

The two sat in silence for a while, handing the bottle back and forth until it was nearly empty. While Spike had consumed most of it, Xander had drunk enough to at least let his balls relax a little.

The brunette looked up at Spike as he handed the bottle back and asked, “Do you really believe what you said before? About … being worth saving?”

Spike shrugged, tipping the bottle up and taking a small sip, trying to conserve what remained. “Have to, don’t I? Love her. If I’m not worth savin’ then …” he sighed. “Then I got no chance, do I?”

“I wasn’t actually talking about you, Evil Dead,” Xander scowled, reaching for the bottle. “I meant me.”

“Oh,” Spike sniffed. “Yeah, I reckon. Best be careful with that rot, though,” he advised, tilting his head toward the bottle in Xander’s hand. “Seen it take decent men and turn ‘em into monsters … so have you, I’d wager.”

Xander contemplated that a moment, looking down at the bottle in his hand. After a long silence he nodded and handed it back to Spike without taking another swig of it. “Yeah,” he agreed softly.

Spike downed the last of it and made to rise. Xander looked up at him, his expression serious.

“Ya know, Angel said he loved her, too … You know where that got her,” the big man said.

Spike had started to take a step toward the door, but stopped in mid-step and turned back to face the brunette, scowling. “I’m. Not. Bloody. Angel,” he ground out in a low growl.

“Because you have a chip?” Xander asked. “We all know you can get around that, don’t we?”

“Got nothin’ to do with the bloody chip, ya git!  Has nothing to do with me at all. Has to do with her. Her passion, her strength, her kindness and humanity. Has to do with how she gives, how she always tries, never quits. Has to do with the depth and breadth of her very soul. Has to do with her renegade heart, how she defies the bloody rules at every turn.

“Has to do with how she’s a girl and a woman and a bloody force of nature all rolled into one,” Spike continued passionately.  “How she never does anything by half-measures. How she laughs. How she cries. How she screams. How she would give everything for people she loves – her very life! Has to do with the way she can walk in the darkness and live in the light. 

“How can anyone know her – know her true heart – and not love her? You tellin’ me you _don’t_ love her?” he challenged the younger man.

Xander swallowed hard, staring at the vampire, feeling a bit dazed – or maybe he was just buzzed. No, it wasn’t that … or not _only_ that. He felt like he’d just been outed. Like Spike had somehow reached into his heart and pulled out several Buffy-shaped pieces for examination – pieces that he’d kept hidden for a good long while.

“I …” the brunette stuttered. “I thought you just wanted the crazy-monkey Slayer sex. Buffy wanted a new ‘Slayer-proof’ bed …”

Spike snorted and turned back toward the door. “You’re a bloody moron.”

“No, I’m not – my parents had me tested,” Xander snarked back. “I’m a fully functional dullard.”

Spike rolled his eyes and reached for the doorknob.

“But, Spike,” Xander called, making the vampire stop again before opening the door. “I still don’t understand how any of that makes you different than Angel.”

Spike turned back to face Xander, looking exasperated. “Angel thought he was doin’ her a favor, doing what the Powers wanted so he could be rewarded, forgiven or some rot. Coming here, gonna help her, protect her, be her guardian bloody _angel –_ was never about her. When he found out she didn’t need him, he scarpered off like a mangy dog.

“Ya see now? It was never about her. It was about him! Poor tortured Angel’s got his soul, gotta make amends, protect the little girl, make up for his evil past. Cry me a bloody river,” Spike scoffed.

“ _She’s the Slayer,”_ the vampire continued in earnest. “She doesn’t need someone t’ stand in front of her! She needs someone t’ stand _with_ her, to follow her unconditionally, to walk into the flames at her side. If ya stand in front of her, you shackle her, ya hold her back, snuff her fire. Ya gotta be willing to burn in her wake, mate. Angel wasn’t.”

“But you are?” Xander asked, his brows drawn together considering this.

Spike arched a brow at the younger man. “Didn’t Xena fill ya in on the demon spawn?”

“You mean Sam? Yeah…” Xander replied a little warily. “But, Finn said—"

“Did she seem like she was off her bird or lying about it?” Spike wondered, cutting Xander off.

“No … I guess not,” Xander conceded.

“And, didn’t ya see me shortly after that little spat with the tribbles?”

“Yeah,” Xander admitted.

“Well then, _dullard_ , what do _you_ think?” Spike posited before turning, opening the door, and striding out.

Xander frowned, staring after Spike for a long while, even after the vamp had turned a corner and disappeared, considering everything. Finally, he stood up too, shaking his head a bit, trying to get all the conflicting thoughts and feelings to stop careening around inside his skull like too many Super Mega Bouncy Balls all zooming in different directions.

Spike made his brain hurt. Or maybe it was the whiskey.

Xander lifted one foot up, closed his eyes, and touched his index fingers to the tip of his nose, testing his sobriety.

Not drunk. It was definitely Spike making his brain hurt.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy sat down at the table where her name was printed on a little placard, glad to finally get off her feet. Between keeping Xander’s father away from the bar, with limited success, keeping the rest of his family from fighting with Anya’s demon friends, giving Riley Finn the stink-eye every chance she got to make sure he kept his distance from Spike, and fighting a giant, Anya-hating monster, her feet were killing her.  She took a long swallow of champagne, immediately regretting that she hadn’t brought two glasses. Maybe Spike would get her another one … or two – or maybe a whiskey from the bar.

She looked around to find him, but he was where he’d been for the last hour or so: on the dance floor. Apparently, a guy who actually knew how to dance – rather than jump up and down like a loon and call it dancing – was pretty popular with the women, demon and human alike. Maybe when this song ended she could get his attention…

“Do you mind if I sit down?” came a female voice from behind Buffy.

The Slayer turned to find Sam standing behind her, looking quite different than the soldier that Buffy had come to know, like, respect, and be just slightly jealous of.

Mrs. Finn was dressed in a sea-green, chiffon, floor-length, flowing dress with a high neckline, and long sleeves. Although technically not revealing at all, the bodice clung to her figure perfectly, accenting all her curves, and there was something sparkly in the material that glittered when she moved. The skirt cascaded around her legs to the floor like a graceful waterfall, soft and elegant.  Her long, brunette locks hung down in soft curls over her shoulders. She looked more like she was ready for a walk down a red carpet than a demon fight.

The effect was slightly marred by the soldier’s blackened eyes, split lip, and swollen nose – but only slightly.

The woman really was lovely. It made Buffy feel just a little self-conscious in her hideous, radioactive bridesmaid dress. Despite that, Buffy nodded, swallowing the gulp of bubbly she’d just taken.

“You look great. I love that dress! How are you feeling?” the blonde asked, turning in her chair to face Sam more directly.

“Thanks, I’m better. Not as good as Spike, but better.” Sam smiled, tucking a lock of hair back behind her ear as she looked across the dance floor to where Spike was now dancing with Dawn.

“Yeah, well … vampire constitutions. I guess there has to be some advantage to not being able to sunbathe,” Buffy joked.

Sam laughed and looked back at the Slayer. “About the other day…” she started, but Buffy waved her off.

“It was my bad,” Buffy admitted. “I’m sorry for going all Othello on you.”

Sam nodded and waved a hand dismissively. “I understand. He’s pretty special, isn’t he?”

Buffy let her eyes drift to the dance floor where Spike was trying to lead Dawn in a waltz, with a dear price being paid by his toes under her feet. Buffy winced and hoped he was fast enough to at least keep his newly-grown toes out from under Dawn’s clomping feet.

The Slayer nodded, looking back at Sam. “He is.”

“I sent a report on the Suvolte nest to HQ,” Sam told her. “I said that you fought with me and defeated them.”

Buffy lifted a brow. “Why?”

Sam tilted her head in a hint of a shrug. “I wasn’t sure how to tell them a vampire helped me. Plus, if they started asking questions, they might discover who he is … Hostile 17 and all. It just seemed less complicated and dangerous for Spike that way.”

“I’m a little surprised that Riley backed that up,” the Slayer observed.

“Riley’s very ‘by the book’, so it took some convincing, but in the end, he hated giving Spike any credit whatsoever, so he let me … _embellish_ it.”

Buffy laughed acerbically and rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised he didn’t just have you say that you two took them out and left us out of it completely.”

“His injuries didn’t jibe with being attacked by demons. It would’ve raised flags,” Sam explained.

Buffy nodded and shrugged. “Okay … but why are you telling me?”

Sam pulled an envelope and a velvet box out of her purse and placed them on the table near Buffy. “There’s a reward … and a couple of medals.”

Buffy’s brows went up and she reached for the items Sam had offered her.

“Secretary of the Army Award for Valor, and the Exceptional Civilian Service Award,” Sam explained as Buffy opened the velvet box to reveal the medals.

“They’re pretty distinguished. The first is awarded when a civilian voluntarily goes above and beyond the call of duty, and the other is for them demonstrating great courage and voluntary risk of life in performing an act that benefits the populace,” Sam continued as Buffy touched a finger to one of the golden medals in the velvet case.

“Wow…shiny,” she muttered. “I never got a medal. And I actually died benefiting the populace – twice.”

Sam smiled. “Well, it has to be witnessed by someone in the Army during an active hostile engagement,” she explained.

Buffy frowned. “Remind me to invite the army to the next apocalypse. Do you need formal, engraved invitations six weeks in advance, or should we just send up a Bat signal the night before?”

Sam laughed and shrugged at the same time. “I’m just a phone call and a cargo plane ride away. Of course, I’d have to bring Ri, too.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. Probably not worth it, then.

Buffy reached for the envelope next, pulling out a sizeable check. “Holy zeroes, Batman,” she gaped, looking up at Sam. “Is this after tax?”

Sam nodded happily. “Income tax and FICA have been withheld.”

“I need to go to work for the Army,” Buffy concluded dazedly, trying to keep her eyes from popping out of her head. “I could work ten years at the DoubleMeat Palace and not take home this much.”

“Well, we don’t get anything near that much. It’s the voluntary risk of life by a civilian that warrants it,” Sam clarified.

Buffy hmphed, still shocked, and looked back up at Sam. “You will most certainly be invited to the next apocalypse, even if I have to tie Riley up and stuff him in a trunk while we handle it.”

Sam gave her another smile and nodded, then began to rise to go, but Buffy put a hand on her arm to stop her.

“I can’t accept these,” she told the soldier flatly, pushing them back across the table.

“What? Why? Is it because you’re the Slayer? It is, isn’t it? The Chosen One can’t receive remuneration.  I wondered if that would be a problem. You’re like Spiderman, right? Action is your reward. Oh, man, I’ve insulted you now, haven’t I? I should have known you couldn’t take the money—”

“Sam! Stop! That’s not it,” Buffy interrupted her, grabbing the taller woman by the shoulders to get her to focus and stop rambling.

“It’s not? Then why?” Sam asked, perplexed.

“Because it’s not mine. It’s Spike’s. I want you to give these to him. I’ll … I’ll sign the check over to him, so you don’t have to change your report, but I want you _and Riley_ to present him with all this in front of the Scoobies,” Buffy explained.

Sam’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times like a landed fish, before asking, “Are you sure you want Riley there?”

“Beyond sure,” Buffy replied confidently.

“Do you think that’s … wise?”

“Definitely not, but I’m still sure,” Buffy declared.

“Uh … well, okay. When?”

Buffy frowned at that. Anya and Xander would be gone on their honeymoon, but it would only be a long weekend – Anya refused to close the shop longer than that, citing all the lost profits she would suffer.

“Can you do it next week? Will you still be in town?” Buffy wondered.

Sam nodded. “Sure, Ri hasn’t been cleared yet. He’s still doing rehab on his knee.”

Buffy nodded. “Okay, I’ll set up a meeting at the Magic Box and let you know when to be there.”

Sam agreed with a nod of her own.

“Hurry, put that away! Spike’s coming. I want him to be surprised at the meeting,” Buffy told her, covertly shoving the envelope and box into the soldier’s hands.

Sam just got them put back into her bag when Spike stepped up between them.

“And, what would two beautiful birds be chattin’ about then? Maybe singing the praises of their favorite heroic vampire?” Spike wondered, setting a glass of champagne down for each of them.

“It’s okay, don’t stop on my account,” he invited, looking expectantly from one to the other.

Buffy smiled up at him innocently. “No, actually, we weren’t talking about our favorite vampire, we were talking about you,” Buffy countered, making Spike frown and deflate a bit.

“Sam was just telling me that you promised her a dance,” Buffy improvised. “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

Spike perked up a bit at that. “Indeed, I have not,” he assured the Slayer, sounding a bit more Giles-y than Spike-y. He extended his hand gallantly toward Sam. “May I have the pleasure?”

“Uhhh … y-yes, that’d be l-lovely,” the soldier stuttered, looking around the nearby tables worriedly.

Buffy laid a hand on Sam’s arm and leaned in close to whisper, “I’ll find Riley and keep him from making a fool of himself. Go dance.”

Sam gave the Slayer a relieved and grateful look before standing up and following Spike back to the dance floor.

Buffy quickly downed both glasses of champagne that Spike brought before standing up and looking around for the big lummox. Keeping Riley from making a fool of himself was gonna take all the liquid courage she could get.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

[ Al Green- Let's Stay Together](https://youtu.be/-M_s0C_ID5w)

_Let me say that since, baby, since we've been together_  
Loving you forever  
Is what I need  
Let me, be the one you come running to  
I'll never be untrue

_Oh, baby_  
Let's, let's stay together (gether)  
Lovin' you whether, whether  
Times are good or bad, happy or sad  
Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah  
Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad

 

“We need to talk,” Buffy announced when she found Riley leaning on the bar sipping an amber liquid that looked like whiskey.

When he turned and breathed noxious fumes in her direction, the assumption of whiskey was confirmed. “I’ve been right here all night, minding my own business. I haven’t so much as spoken to any of these … _unusual_ wedding guests. Therefore, I don’t think we have anything to talk about,” he told her flatly, turning back to the bar.

“If by ‘minding your own business’ you mean getting drunk on cheap whiskey, then I’d say you’re right. As far as not having anything to talk about, as usual, you’re wrong. Come with me. I can’t have a conversation with you with ‘Let’s Stay Together’ as the background music.”

When Riley made no move to come with her, Buffy stepped up to the bar next to him and said, “Wasn’t really a request, Finn.”

Riley snorted more alcoholic fumes at her. “What are you gonna do, break my other knee?”

“I’d rather not, but, hey – whatever turns you on. I’m not judge-y. Did you want it fast and painful, or slow and extra painful?” she offered generously, giving him a sweet smile.

Riley rolled his eyes and picked up his drink, turning and waving an inviting hand at her. “After you, bitch.”

“Oh, that hurts,” Buffy mocked, holding a hand to her heart. “I see you’ve really grown and matured in the Army. Being all you can be, I guess.

“Let’s go,” she commanded, taking hold of his elbow and guiding him out of the main hall toward the empty side-rooms. Riley still had a noticeable limp, but he managed to keep up with her without being physically dragged. Too bad.

Buffy avoided the room with the dead demon in it, and instead chose the one that had been Anya’s dressing room, escorting the soldier inside and closing the door behind them.

“What?” he demanded, turning to face her as soon as they were inside.

“I need you to do something for me… for Spike,” Buffy informed him, getting right to the point.

Riley laughed caustically and took another drink of whiskey.  “Yeah? About the only thing I’m inclined to do for Spike is shoot him again … with wooden bullets.”

“He saved Sam,” Buffy reminded him. “You owe him.”

“I owe him a beat down,” he groused.

“Riley, you need to face it: Spike is not the evil creature that you – or I – thought he was. He risked his life to stop those demons. He risked his life to save Sam. You remember her, right? Your _wife_?! The wife you’re gonna lose if you don’t get your head out of your ass!”

“What are you talking about!? Sam loves me,” he argued, taking another drink from his glass.

“Yeah, well, maybe she does, but she’s seen something here that you refuse to see, and it will drive a wedge between you if you don’t open your fucking eyes,” Buffy informed him gravely.

“Okay, I’ll bite. Just what has she seen that I haven’t?”

“Grey – the world is made up of shades of grey, Finn. It is not all good or evil. It is not all black and white. I thought you’d started seeing that before … before you left. But you’re right back to whistling that same old Initiative tune. You know the one where your evil boss tries to kill me because I’m the threat?”

“Maybe she was right,” Riley muttered dourly.

Buffy nodded grimly. “Maybe she was. And maybe the world being overrun by demons from another dimension would be fun. Who really knows, after all? They might’ve been Tickle-Me-Elmo demons who just go around poking you in the ribs for a laugh. Or Happy-Puppy demons who lick you and wag their tails enthusiastically.”

Riley rolled his eyes and plopped down into one of the chairs. He downed the rest of his whiskey and set the glass down before dropping his head into his hands.

Buff pulled up a chair across from him and sat down, too. “Riley,” she began gently. “Why are you so … angry?”

He shook his head, which was still resting in his palms, his elbows propped on his knees, but didn’t answer immediately. Finally, he took a deep breath and looked up at her earnestly. “You’re fucking Spike.”

Buffy gave him a wan smile. “You noticed, huh?”

“Buffy … you’re better than—”

The Slayer cut him off with a hand on his arm. “No, I’m really not. You just thought the Slayer _should_ be. I’ve actually had the unusual pleasure of meeting two other Slayers, and I can tell you we’re just people. Some good, some bad, some horrible at algebra, some idealistic, some psychotic. We aren’t better than anyone else, we’re just Chosen, apparently out of the blue with a cosmic dartboard, to stand between everyone else and evil.”

Riley sighed and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. “But Spike _is the evil_ ,” he argued, still looking up.

“And I’m standing between him and everyone else,” Buffy replied brightly. “Especially other women who he seems to puke charm all over without even knowing it.”

“Puke charm?” Riley asked, looking back at her in confusion. “Is that even possible?”

Buffy laughed. “That’s what Spike said.”

Riley groaned. “Please don’t tell me things like that.”

“Another fun fact: Spike has a soul.”

“What?” Riley asked incredulously.

“I’ve seen it. It’s a little bird with a broken wing, well, actually, the wing healed. But I burned it up and it rose up out of the flames and turned into William, who is just so sweet, you just want to cuddle him, and we made the fishies swim off, and Dru can kiss my not-at-all-fat ass,” Buffy rambled, cheerily.

“What?” Riley repeated, baffled. Maybe it was the whiskey, but he thought she said something about a little bird and fishies.

Buffy waved a hand, dismissing it. “The point is, there’s a soul inside him, and, little by little it’s been coming out of the darkness – for _years_ now. It has to go slow or it’ll go flying over the cuckoo’s nest and right down the rabbit hole, but it’s there and he listens to it.

“He’s not a monster, he’s a man.”

Riley rolled his eyes away from her and shook his head, refuting her. “He’s got you fooled or thralled or … something. Buffy, it’s _Spike_.”

“Okay, fine,  you don’t believe me. What about Sam? What did Sam tell you about him? Did he go all ‘grr-argh’ on her, or leave her to fend off the Suvolte alone? Or did he sacrifice himself to save her – your wife. He fucking hates you with a burning passion, Finn. Why would an evil vampire with no soul give a shit about saving your wife? If anything, he should’ve let her go in there alone and just walked away.

“But. He. Didn’t,” Buffy finished decisively.

Riley jumped up from his seat and began pacing back and forth in agitation, shaking his head negatively.

“Riley,” Buffy tried again, still seated. “There’s something coming. I’ve been feeling like … little tremors of it, flashes of dreams warning me. It’s something big. Bigger than Suvolte, bigger than the God of Bad Home Perms, bigger than all the anger you’ve got inside you.”

“And?” Riley shot back, stopping to glare at her.

“And, I need Spike to help me fight it.”

Buffy held up a hand, stopping the soldier’s objection. “It’s just something I know, I feel in my Spidey-senses, not something I can explain. I’m going to need Spike to win next time.”

“Fine – whatever,” he shot back. “Say I believe any of this, what does that have to do with me?”

“I want you to get Hostile 17 marked as dusted, or purged, or nullified or whatever you call it in soldier-speak. I want him off the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Vampires’ list,” Buffy revealed.

Riley stopped pacing. Standing with his hands on his hips, he slowly shook his head, looking over Buffy’s head, his eyes fixed on the spot where the wall met the ceiling in the small room.

“Fine,” he agreed curtly. “Anything else?” he asked sarcastically, certainly not expecting an answer.

“I want the chip removed.”

Riley’s horrified gaze dropped to meet her eyes. “Are you out of your mind? Maybe it’s you who’s drunk!”

“No … well … maybe a little, but I’m not wrong about this,” Buffy asserted.

“You’re just gonna unleash William the Bloody on your friends and family, on the world?! I wonder what they’d have to say about it!”

Buffy shrugged. “If they didn’t want me doing the right thing, then they should’ve left me rotting six feet under.

“Actually, it was over eight feet – as if I really needed the extra challenge of digging out of two more feet of packed earth? Was that a test or something? Like, if you can’t get out of here, then you aren’t worthy of being resurrected. They couldn’t have just put me in a crypt above ground? It would’ve been so much easier and less muddy,” the Slayer digressed slightly.

Riley shook his head, bewildered. “They resurrected you, but made you dig yourself out?”

Buffy waved a dismissive hand. “It was a thing; demons, and motorcycles, and zombie Buffy, oh my!”

Then, turning serious again, she asserted, “I’m the Slayer, it’s my call. It’s the right thing to do. And you owe Spike – big time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa! Will Finn really do it?! What will the rest of the Scoobies think when they hear what Buffy wants? How will the whole medal presentation go? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply marvelous -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! Extra super-special thanks to her for creating the beautiful banner for this chapter, too! She's the bestest!!
> 
> More to come soon!


	30. Little Piggies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will they actually make it out of the wedding reception with no further mishaps?

 

* * *

 

[Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton](https://youtu.be/xl7Hd2r0LOs)

  _It's late in the evening; she's wondering what clothes to wear_  
_She puts on her make-up and brushes her long blonde hair_  
_And then she asks me, “Do I look all right?”_  
_And I say, "Yes, you look wonderful tonight.”_

 _We go to a party and everyone turns to see_  
_This beautiful lady that's walking around with me_  
_And then she asks me, “Do you feel all right?”_  
_And I say, "Yes, I feel wonderful tonight."_

 

“It’s really amazing how well you’re doing,” Sam commented as Spike led her to the dance floor, just as Eric Clapton began to sing from the DJ’s speakers. “If I didn’t know your leg and foot were hurt, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell. How’s your stomach?”

“Comin’ along,” Spike assured her, turning gracefully to take her into his arms. “Still hurts when I throw a punch, or get punched, or twist, bend, run, cough, sit down, stand up…”

Sam laughed lightly. “You seem to be handling it pretty well. You guys put that demon down without much trouble. Ri and I couldn’t even get across the floor to help before you’d finished it.”

“The Slayer did most o’ the heavy lifting. I just kept it distracted. Appreciate the thought, though, Xena. Maybe next time, yeah?”

Sam smiled and nodded, tucking a strand of soft curls behind her ear before replacing her hand on Spike’s shoulder.

Spike was especially careful to keep his hands in G-rated, dance-appropriate places: his right hand on her left hip, and his left hand holding her right hand up at a slight angle away from their bodies. He also made sure there was space between their bodies. He didn’t need the Slayer thinking he was puking charm, or anything else, on the soldier again. Regardless of how flattering he found Buffy’s jealousy, he valued his balls more.

“You look lovely t’day. The chiffon suits ya,” Spike remarked sincerely. “Too bad they don’t make commando gear out of it. You’d have all the demons bowing at yer feet, offering their lives to the Goddess of Grace and Beauty.”

Sam blushed brightly and chuckled, lowering her lashes shyly. “Maybe it’s worth a try,” she joked. “You clean up pretty nicely too, I have to say.”

“Much better without demon guts as garters, I’ll admit.”

“I still can’t say how grateful I am,” Sam continued, looking back up, but Spike shook his head, stopping her.

“No need, pet. Maybe one day I’ll need my bacon pulled outta the fire, and you can repay the service,” he suggested.

“I’ll leave you guys some cards with my number – just say the word, we’ll be here,” she assured him, swaying gently with him to the slow rhythm.

Spike cocked a brow, and Sam shrugged. “I’d have to bring Riley. We’re sort of a package deal,” she admitted.

“He’d be more likely to toss my bacon _into_ the fire. Did he ever tell ya about the time he staked me?”

“What? But …” Sam looked confused, her brows drawn together in a tight frown as she looked at Spike.

“Was a plastic stake but looked like wood. Scared the bloody bejesus outta me, gotta say.” Then, more sharply he added, “Don’t you dare breathe a word o’ that to anyone!”

Sam chuckled and shook her head, still following the slow dance that Spike led them in. “Our secret.

“So, a fake staking, an organ getting dropped on you,” she began. “It sounds like you and Wile E. Coyote have some things in common. Did anyone ever drop an anvil on you after you’d run off the edge of a cliff? Or blow you up with dynamite? Or paint a black tunnel on a rock to have you smash into it?”

Spike laughed. “Not yet, but don’t give ‘em any ideas, yeah? Although, the Slayer did blow up an associate of mine with a rocket launcher, and we used a Winnebago t’ take out some medieval knights that were chasin’ us on horseback,” he admitted.

Sam laughed again, shaking her head. “She’s not your typical Slayer, is she?”

Spike’s eyes grew soft, his expression filled with awe. “No, she’s not your typical anything.”

Looking back at Sam, he smiled softly. “There is one difference between me and Wile,” he informed her.

“Yeah? What’s that?” she wondered as they danced.

“My bird stopped running away.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

As Buffy and Riley reentered the main reception hall, the soldier stopped abruptly, catching sight of his wife dancing with Spike. Buffy followed the large man’s gaze and reached out to grip his upper arm.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she advised him sternly.

Riley didn’t reply, but just kept watching and seething as Spike and Sam swayed to the slow beat of the music, talking and laughing.

Buffy tightened her grip on his arm, feeling the soldier’s body tense, like a tiger ready to spring.

“Rileyyy,” she warned. “Don’t.”

“He’s dancing with _my_ _wife_ ,” Finn growled, sounding very much like a tiger, as well.

“Yes. They’re dancing. Oh, and talking. My goodness! Look, he made her laugh. Outrageous! What a scandal!” Buffy mocked.

“Get a grip,” she demanded firmly, squeezing his arm until he was forced to gasp in pain and look down at her.

“It’s just a dance,” Buffy pointed out. “My limited knowledge of this pagan ritual is, if you’d like to dance with your wife before the song ends, you walk up behind the man and tap him gently on the shoulder – key word being _gently_! – and politely ask if you can cut in.

“Here, I’ll tag along and help you with it, just in case that gets too confusing,” Buffy offered, taking a step forward, her fingers digging painfully into the large man’s biceps.

Riley walked along beside her somewhat reluctantly, but with little choice if he didn’t want his shoulder pulled out of place again.

As the pair approached behind Spike, Buffy saw Sam look up and stiffen slightly, which made Spike tense. Buffy cleared her throat, just to make sure Spike knew she was there, then signaled with her head for Riley to go ahead and do as she’d instructed.

Riley scowled at her but reached his free hand out and tapped Spike on the shoulder – gently … well, it wasn’t a punch, at least.

“May I cut in and dance with _my wife_?” he asked in as polite a tone as he could muster, which wasn’t really very polite at all, to be honest.

Spike released Sam, and stepped deftly back and to the side, so Sam stood facing Riley.

“Someone’s been readin’ Emily Post,” Spike mocked, meeting Riley’s icy glare with one of his own. “Did Sam have to help you with the big words?”

Buffy kicked the vampire lightly on the shin, and Spike scowled, but relinquished. “Since ya asked so nicely, and as long as the lady doesn’t object,” Spike agreed grudgingly, looking to Sam for permission.

Sam tilted her head in agreement, a small smile on her lips, her long hair falling in cascading waves of loose curls over her shoulders.

“Thank you for the dance and the conversation, Wile,” she said to Spike before stepping toward her husband.

“Pleasure was all mine, Samantha,” Spike replied, bowing slightly and taking a step back from the pair.

He took another step away from them, then turned towards Buffy before remarking, “And they say ya can’t teach dimwitted twits proper manners.”

Buffy laughed as she settled her hand in the crook of his elbow.

“You must really like her,” she remarked, giving Spike a questioning look. “ _’Samantha_?’”

Spike shrugged. “She’ll do. Too bad she’s attached to that wanker Finn. Could trade her out for Xander in the Scooby gang. Now, there’s an idea!” he said excitedly, his eyes widening hopefully as he looked at Buffy. “Send Xander off with Finn and keep the chiffon commando!”

Buffy laughed again. “I’m not sure how Anya would feel about that.”

“Probably be forever in our debt,” Spike suggested, but Buffy just shook her head, still smiling.

Spike huffed dejectedly as they started back toward their table, Buffy’s stomach rumbling unhappily.

“I’m starving. I never did get to eat anything,” she complained. “I even missed the cake!”

“Got some cute little pigs in blankets that look edible. Shall I get ya some?” Spike offered.

Buffy nodded thankfully. “Dough-encased piggies sound perfect – just make sure you get it from the human side of the buffet. I think the demon version might be actual baby piggies under those blankets.

“And some more champagne … or maybe some whiskey. I could really use a drink.”

Spike looked back at Sam and Riley on the dance floor. “Don’t blame ya. How did you manage to keep the git from blowing a gasket, then?” 

Buffy smiled. “With my ingenious wile, clever cunning, and artful charm … and the threat of breaking his other knee.”

Spike laughed. “Brilliant, you are, luv.”

“And hungry,” she reminded him. “Feed meeeee,, Seymour!”

“Your wish is my command, Twoey. Sit. Stay. Be back directly,” he assured her, pulling her chair out for her at their table before he continued on toward the buffet table.

“You may regret that later,” Buffy called after him. When he turned a confused look back on her over his shoulder, she clarified, “The ‘my wish is your command’ part.”

Spike smirked and wagged his brows at her suggestively. “Never happen, luv. No regrets,” he assured her, turning and striding purposely toward the food table, only limping slightly.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Oh, that was so good,” Buffy sighed, washing the last of the little, dough-blanketed, metaphorical piggies down with a sip of whiskey.

Spike watched her with a warm glow in his heart. She looked so happy, now resplendent with a little whiskey and food. There was nothing he loved more than seeing her happy, smiling, and content.  Not that her other moods and looks didn’t light some fires, but when Buffy was happy, he felt her joy deep in his bones.

The DJ announced the last dance for the evening. The newlyweds would be leaving soon, heading off to their short honeymoon in Big Sur. Buffy sighed in relief. It was almost over, and they had survived. They just needed to make it a little while longer.

Spike stood up and extended a hand toward Buffy. “May I have this dance, m’lady?” he asked graciously.

Buffy laughed, taking his hand and standing up. “Why certainly, my dear sir,” she replied in as hoity-toity an accent as she could manage.

As they made it onto the dance floor, the final dance began to play. Buffy looked at Spike with a mix of disbelief, embarrassment, and amusement.

“You didn’t,” she breathed as he pulled her into his strong arms, holding her close. He touched a soft kiss to her lips as they began to sway to the slow song.

“I did,” he admitted, his breath cool against her lips, his body strong and solid against hers.

 

 [Wind Beneath My Wings, Bette Midler](https://youtu.be/jorJh8DTMVM)

 _Ohhhh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh._  
_It must have been cold there in my shadow,_  
_To never have sunlight on your face._  
_You were content to let me shine, that's your way._  
_You always walked a step behind._

 _So I was the one with all the glory,_  
_While you were the one with all the strength._  
_A beautiful face without a name for so long._  
_A beautiful smile to hide the pain._

 _Did you ever know that you're my hero,_  
_And everything I would like to be?_  
_I can fly higher than an eagle,_  
_For you are the wind beneath my wings._

 _It might have appeared to go unnoticed,_  
_But I've got it all here in my heart._  
_I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it._  
_I would be nothing without you._

Buffy laughed against his shoulder, but also felt tears sting her eyes as she moved with him. The words to the song seemed to take on new meaning given recent events. He was the hero, but no one wanted to give him the credit he deserved. Even Sam, who Buffy was sure would’ve liked to give Spike the credit, couldn’t do it without putting him, and possibly her career, in jeopardy.

Well, that was going to change and soon. Next week, when Xander and Anya came back, Spike was going to get the credit and recognition he deserved for what he’d done defeating the Suvolte, and the sacrifice he’d made to save Sam. And, as a final expression of her trust, of her belief in him and the expanding fiery soul within, he would be made whole. The chip would be removed. And ‘Hostile 17’ would be gone for good.

“Didn’t mean t’ make ya cry, pet,” Spike murmured against her ear as they danced, their bodies moving in perfect synchronicity, as if one being.

Buffy shook her head, looking up to give him a smile. “It’s okay, happy tears,” she explained. “But I think I’m leaving salt stains on your jacket.”

Spike chuckled. “Had worse. Reckon a few tears won’t do too much damage,” he assured her. 

Buffy settled back against him, still swaying to the music, delighting in the day. Seeing her friends finally joined in wedded bliss, having Spike mostly whole again, the reward she knew he’d soon receive from Sam and Riley, and in just being in his arms at this moment – it all filled her with joy.

“You purposely had them save this for the last dance,” she remarked, looking back up to see his eyes.

He looked down, meeting her shimmering green gaze with his soft blue. “I did. Always save the last dance for you, Buffy. Always.”

As the song ended, Buffy cupped his face in her hands and pulled his lips to hers, kissing him deeply, ardently, fully, letting the world fall away around them. Everything was perfect in this moment, and she wanted to relish it, to float in the happiness as long as they could.

Their little bubble of serenity was broken abruptly when Dawn grabbed her sister’s arm and tugged. “Buffy! C’mon! They’re leaving, Anya’s tossing the bouquet!”

Buffy laughed and allowed her sister to pull her from Spike’s arms, giving her boyfriend an apologetic look. Spike followed behind, standing on the outskirts of the gathering. The earlier rain had stopped, and the sun had set, early evening was upon them.

Someone handed Spike a small bag of birdseed, which he’d been informed by Dawn had replaced rice as the thing to pelt the newlyweds with. He considered leaving it in the little bag and hurling it at the git’s head, maybe knock a bit o’ sense into him, but thought that might set off the chip, so abandoned the tempting idea.

Spike watched as the happy couple emerged from the reception. Anya was radiant, simply glowing with giddy happiness. Her joy seemed infectious, even making Spike smile as he watched. Xander was also laughing and joking with people and demons alike as they passed down the steps of the venue, between the well-wishers, toward the waiting limo. The previously-reluctant groom caught Spike’s eye in the crowd and gave the vampire a short nod of acknowledgement and maybe even … appreciation? Spike returned the nod, trying to suss out just what that meant. He shrugged, not really sure – not wanting to read more into the small gesture than was really there – before joining the rest of the guests in tossing the seed, removed from the little bag, in the air over the happy couple’s heads.

At the limo, Anya held up her untraditional bouquet, a flowery-spray of sparkling, white crystals, to all the single ladies who had gathered in the couple’s wake.  The bride turned her back and flung the glittering posies high into the air toward the eligible bachelorettes. Spike watched it arc into the night sky and fall like a glittering star into the middle of the eager ladies. He couldn’t immediately tell who had snagged the coveted prophet of impending marriage, but then the sea of bodies parted.

Buffy’s sparkling, smiling eyes met his, the crystal posies in her hand. His chest constricted tightly and then expanded with hope and joy the likes of which he’d never felt before. A bubbling laugh rose up from the depths of his being as he imagined what the portent might mean. Would she ever stand next to him, looking radiantly happy in a white dress, and vow to be his forever in front of her friends and family? He was almost afraid to imagine it, but he couldn’t stop the euphoria that filled his heart with the thought.   

He was still chortling softly when she made her way to him through the disbursing crowd of humans and demons. The newlyweds having finally escaped the melee, heading off in the limo to their wedding night bliss.

Buffy put her arms around his neck, still holding the bouquet, and kissed him lightheartedly.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked, her eyes still glittering with happiness.

“What, pet?” he wondered, smiling down at her.

“The next wedding we’re at, I get the first dance _and_ the last,” she informed him brightly.

Spike laughed and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up and twirling her in a giddy circle there in the night.

“Every dance is yours, Buffy.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: The medal and other rewards from the Army will be presented to Spike. How will that go? 
> 
> • Twoey/Seymour reference to ‘Little Shop of Horrors’  
> • Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner are a duo of characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply astounding -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	31. I Believe in You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The award ceremony for Spike in the Magic Box in front of all the Scobbies.
> 
> Some dialogue directly from Season 7, Never Leave Me, by Drew Goddard

**A few days later…**

Buffy and Spike walked into the Magic Box a few nights later just before closing time. Spike was nearly completely healed now. All the bandages had been removed. Muscle tissue, tendons, and skin had all regenerated, almost as if nothing had happened. There were still some tender spots, especially on his abdomen, but mostly he was whole and well. His foot had even stopped squirming under the skin with no alien emerging. Some of the new tissue was still more pink than the surrounding alabaster, but Buffy assumed that would fade with time.

The Scoobies –Willow, Tara, Anya, Xander and Dawn – were already there waiting. Anya was ringing up the last customer in the store, while the others sat around the research table at the back of the shop chatting. It did Buffy’s heart good to see Tara back in the group, sitting meaningfully close to Willow – they looked genuinely happy. She hoped beyond hope that the two witches could make it work; Buffy wasn’t sure she’d ever seen two people more meant for each other.

Xander was showing Dawn some pictures from the honeymoon in Big Sur. Buffy hoped they were just landscapes or pictures from dinners out at restaurants – in other words, nothing Anya had taken. Xander also looked joyously happy. He seemed to beam every time he looked up at his wife, who was currently grinning widely as she encouraged the departing customer to come back soon and leave more of their money.

The group looked up at the blondes as they approached the table, Buffy’s hand linked with Spike’s. A slight frown washed over Xander’s face at the sight – an old, habitual pang of disapproval washing over him – but he masked it quickly back into neutrality. The ladies at the table, by contrast, were all smiles.

“Your duster!” Willow exclaimed, taking in Spike’s appearance. “The soapy mini-demon fixed it!”

Spike shrugged his shoulders under the leather, as if settling it into place. “Took a bit o’ doing, and a few extra shillings, but she got it mended.”

“And got the stink out,” Buffy added, passing her nose close to his shoulder and inhaling. “Smells like saddle soap now.”

“Just need t’ get it worn back in. A few nights out patrolling, a tumble or two in the grass, should have it back to normal, I reckon,” Spike put in, smirking at Buffy, leaving the term ‘tumble’ open for interpretation.

Buffy blushed slightly and cleared her throat. Even after everything, she still felt slightly uncomfortable with the not-so-subtle sexual innuendos that Spike dropped around her friends. Of course, they all knew she was with Spike and that they were sleeping together. Tara had known for a while, and Willow and Dawn couldn’t have helped but figure it out, living in the same house. Plus, Xander was building a new Slayer-proof bedframe for her … for _them_.

‘ _Lighten up and get over yourself_ ,’ Buffy told herself. _‘You like Spike’s snark and teasing when you’re alone, why are you suddenly uptight around your friends?_

_‘Habit,’_ came back the reply from her brain, making her roll her eyes at herself.

“So, is there a new big-bad in town we need to beat down?” Willow asked brightly. “Not that I’m up for the beating … but I’m ready for all the research-y fun!”

“No,” Buffy explained. “Apparently, turning a full nest of tribbles into sewer puke has made the Hellmouth less appealing. I called this meeting for another reason. Just waiting for …”

Just then the little bell over the door tinkled, and Sam and Riley entered. Riley’s limp seemed to be getting better, it wasn’t quite as noticeable as it had been at the wedding. Sam still had some healing bruises on her face around her eyes, but she looked almost normal again. They were dressed, as usual, in their matching, black commando gear. Spike did notice, however, that Sam’s hair was tied back in a tail with a bit of seafoam green chiffon, like the dress she’d worn to the wedding, and it fluttered gently behind her as she walked.

He smiled at her as the two approached, pointedly looking at the bit of non-military adornment. “It’s a good start, pet,” he commented. “Won’t be long ‘fore you have the demons just fallin’ at yer feet.”

Sam reached up to touch the soft ends of the fabric hanging down with her ponytail, giving Spike a small smile in return, but before she could reply, her husband interposed himself between the two, verbally and physically. 

“She already does. It’s called putting a bullet in their brains,” Riley returned shortly, glaring at Spike. “Or a stake in the heart,” he added pointedly. _Pointedly – get it?_

“Wasn’t actually talkin’ to you, White Bread,” Spike retorted, stepping up closer to the bigger man in challenge.

“Can’t be happy screwing my ex-girlfriend? Need to try and worm your way into my wife’s pants, too?” Riley shot back, taking another step closer to the vamp, closing the gap between the two even further.

Spike’s brows went up. “Can’t help it if your women jump ship an’ come running when they see a real man, can I?”

Riley pulled back his clenched fist, preparing to unleash many days’ worth of pent-up frustration on the Slayer’s little protected fuck-toy.  

“You son-of-a-bit—” Riley’s words, and his blow, were stopped when Sam grabbed his arm and yanked him backwards, unexpectedly pulling him off balance.

Buffy stepped between the two men, facing Spike, and pushed him backwards as well. She backed him up away from Riley until the vampire’s butt hit the back of a chair at the research table.

“Enough!” the Slayer growled at both of them, turning to shoot warning glares in both directions. “Let’s just dial back the testosterone overdose and put your dicks back in your pants, both of you!

“And you too!” Buffy added as a preemptive strike, glaring at Xander.

Xander held his hands up in surrender. “Whoa! I’m testosterone-free! Trust me! Three days of wedded, honeymooner bliss with Anya, hardly ever leaving our room? She has every last drop. I can barely even find my dick to pee.”

“TMI,” Dawn moaned, closing her eyes and shaking her head to clear the mental imagery.

Buffy rolled her eyes and forced her mouth into a grimace to hide the smile that threatened to emerge.

Anya joined the group at the back of the store, having finished with the last customer, and caught the last of the discussion.

“I’m very hopeful my Xander will recover his virility soon. The honeymoon phase should last at least a year. I don’t want to waste a minute of it. We’re having oyster stew, oysters on the half-shell, and garlic oyster linguine for dinner tonight, with deep-fried oysters for dessert. Do you think that will work?” she asked, looking at Willow and Tara.

The two witches looked at each other, then back at Anya. “We don’t really have that problem,” Willow reminded the newlywed.

“Oh, sure, rub it in,” Anya huffed. “Why couldn’t I have been a lesbian?”

“I hear they make a little blue pill fer that now,” Spike added helpfully. “Could get ya a few hundred, maybe he could at least find it then – no promises, o’ course.”

Anya’s eyes went wide and hopeful, but before she could accept Spike’s offer Buffy cleared her throat loudly. “There is actually a reason I called this meeting, other than to discuss male reproductive parts,” she informed them. 

“Thank goodness,” Dawn moaned, rolling her eyes.

Buffy gave her sister a sympathetic look, then turned to the business at hand.

“Anya, if you’d sit down next to your sexually depleted husband, please,” Buffy requested, pulling a chair out for the ex-demon. “And Spike, if you’d just stand here,” she directed, pulling him away from the table a couple of feet, and turning him to face it, so everyone at the table could see him.

“Sam?” she prompted, looking at the soldier, who had now positioned herself in front of her perpetually-angry husband.

Buffy moved back, strategically standing behind Xander, and relinquishing the floor to the soldier.

Sam cleared her throat and stepped forward toward Spike as she pulled a blue, velvet case from her pocket, along with an envelope.

“On behalf of the United States Army and the citizens of these United States, I am honored to present you with the Secretary of the Army Award for Valor, and the Exceptional Civilian Service Award,” she pronounced formally.

Sam removed the medals one at a time from the case and began ceremoniously pinning them to the left breast of Spike’s duster.

Each medal was a bright, golden, round medallion which was suspended from a triangle of silk ribbon. The award for valor, appropriately, had the word ‘VALOR’ in raised letters on its face above a raised, five-pointed star, and hung on a red ribbon with a blue and white stripe. The service award had a raised presidential seal on its face and hung from a blue ribbon with three narrow white stripes.

“The Award for Valor commemorates voluntarily going above and beyond the call of duty as a private citizen. It’s the highest award for bravery and heroism by a non-combatant, awarded in cases where someone knowingly places his life in peril while saving, or attempting to save, the lives of others,” she explained as she pinned them on.  

“And the Exceptional Civilian Award is for demonstrating great courage and voluntary risk of life in performing an act that benefits the populace at large, performed by a civilian.”

Spike stood stock-still. Stunned into silence for perhaps the first time _ever_ … certainly since Buffy’d known him. He looked down as the soldier pinned the medals on, completely gobsmacked.

Dawn, Willow, and Tara whispered words of awe and amazement among themselves at the honor being bestowed on the vampire. Riley stood back where Sam had yanked him, several feet from the others, glowering like an angry toad.

“Ummm, not to be unpatriotic-guy,” Xander commented when Sam had stepped back. “But shouldn’t Buffy have a truck-load of those by now?”

“Turns out, the Army has to be invited to the party for them to dole out the bling,” Buffy explained from behind him.

“Are they real gold? Like 99.99% pure or …” Anya wondered, sitting forward and eyeing them critically.

Sam laughed. “No, I think they’re just gold plated.”

Anya huffed, sitting back and folding her arms over her chest. “Not much reward for all that risk. Definitely not a good investment.”

“The value is in the rarity of the medals and the honor,” Sam admitted. “There are only a handful of recipients who’ve received even _one_ of those, let alone both.”

“H-h-how is Spike a ‘non-combatant?’” Tara wondered. “H-he looked pretty … combated,” she pointed out.

“It just means he isn’t in the armed services; a civilian versus a soldier,” Sam explained. “Soldiers are _expected_ to do those things. Although there are medals for valor in the military, for going above and beyond, they’re different than these.”

“Well, I think it’s super cool!” Dawn piped up, jumping up from her seat and darting over to give Spike a tight hug. His arms went around her dazedly, an automatic reflex, but he was still in too much shock to fully participate in the gesture.

“Look at you, all hero-y!” the younger Summers girl gushed, touching the medals with a finger as she pulled back. “You’ve always been my hero. I’m so proud of you.”

Spike focused on her then, everything beginning to register, and gave her a shy smile, before looking down at the medals. “Thanks, Nibblet. Means a lot from you, pet.”

“There’s more,” Sam announced. “On behalf of the US Army, and the citizens of … well, the world, really, this is for you.”

Sam handed him the envelope with the check in it. Spike quirked a brow at her in question, but then opened it.

Buffy nearly laughed out loud as Spike’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, and he was once again left speechless. He looked up then and found her eyes. “Buffy …”

“It’s yours. You did it, not me,” she assured him. “You deserve it.”

“What is it?” Willow asked, looking between Sam, Buffy, and Spike.

“A monetary reward for voluntary risk of life by a citizen,” Sam explained.

“How much reward?” Anya wondered, suddenly interested again. “Are we talking a ‘tank of gas’ reward, or a ‘vacation condo in Tahoe’ reward?”

“A ‘not enough for him to ever do something that idiotic again’ reward,” Buffy offered, meeting Spike’s eyes again. “Right?”

Spike nodded absently, stuffing the check and the envelope into the pocket of his jeans.

“And, one last thing,” Sam announced, stepping back and looking at her husband. “Ri?”

Buffy tensed, suddenly more alert, as she watched Riley pull some papers from his pocket. The soldier covered the distance between himself and Spike in just a few long strides and slapped the folded papers against Spike’s chest hard enough to rock the vamp back on his heels.

The vampire growled, but reflexively grabbed them as the soldier turned on his heel and stalked away again. “Congratulations. Hostile 17 is dead,” he called back, heading for the door. “And William the Bloody’s chip will be removed tomorrow. Be down in the old Initiative bunker at nineteen hundred hours.”

There were gasps and murmurs from the Scoobies, all of them looking around the table at each other with wide eyes, wondering if they’d heard correctly. Before any of them could speak, though, Riley had whirled back around, and strode back across the floor until he was looming over Spike threateningly.

The soldier poked a finger against Spike’s chest, emphasizing every word. “If you spill one single drop of human blood, I will hunt you down and _make you wish_ for a stake in the heart.”

Spike glared back at the soldier, the meaning of everything Finn had said before having finally sunk in. “Only blood I’ll be spillin’ is yours, you big, gormless tit.”

“Bring. It. On,” Riley challenged, leaning in even closer.

“There will be no shedding of blood, unless I do it,” Buffy cut in, stepping forward and yanking on Riley’s shoulder, pulling him back from Spike and turning him around to face her in one motion.

“Maybe you should thank Spike for what he’s done,” she suggested sanguinely.

“When hell freezes over,” the soldier snarled at her. “Although, maybe it has. The Slayer unleashing a member in good standing of the Scourge of Europe on the world again? _Screwing_ that dead, vile creature!?” Riley waved his hand back toward Spike, in case there was any question about who he meant.

“Don’t worry, Buffy. When he kills you and your friends, I promise to hunt him down and make him sorry he ever heard of Sunnydale.”

“Get. Out,” Buffy ordered sharply, returning the soldier’s glare.

Riley narrowed his eyes, glaring down at her a moment longer, but then took a step back and whirled on his heel. He strode back toward the front door of the shop, anger billowing off him in palpable waves. As he passed, he grabbed Sam’s arm and tugged her along in his considerable wake. She shot Buffy an apologetic look over her shoulder, yanking her arm out of Riley’s grasp, but followed her husband from the shop.

At the door, the angry soldier called back, “Been nice knowing you all. I’ll be sure to send flowers to your funerals.”

The next moment the bell over the door tinkled brightly, incongruous with the mood in the room. Then the door slammed behind the soldiers, leaving a deafening silence in the shop. Muffled, angry words exploded outside, but they moved away too quickly for any, save perhaps for Spike, to make them out.

Buffy closed her eyes a moment, drawing in a deep breath of the tension-filled air. No one spoke immediately, or even moved. ‘ _That could’ve gone better,_ ’ she thought, drawing in another calming breath before turning to face her friends. _‘Of course, it could’ve gone worse, too.’_

She held up her hands to keep her friends from speaking, and moved to the head of the table, standing between them and Spike.

“No, I have not lost my mind,” she assured everyone, but directed her gaze at Xander. “Spike has a soul.”

Everyone started to speak at once, but she waved one hand sharply through the air and cut them off. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this. Spike came back wrong … when he was turned, I mean, he came back wrong. Part of his soul stayed with him … part of his humanity. It’s still inside him, and it’s been growing stronger all this time that he’s been around us.”

“That’s the _chip_ , Buff,” Xander argued, but she shook her head.

“No, it’s not. You guys saw … you saw Warren. Spike could’ve gotten around the chip at any time and hurt or killed any or all of us. He. Didn’t,” she reminded them. “He didn’t have to help Sam with those demons – he could’ve just walked away and let her die. He. Didn’t.

“I’ve _seen_ his soul, you have to trust me on this. It’s not right to leave that chip in him and I won’t do it. I know you won’t all agree with me, and that’s fine, you don’t have to. I’m the Slayer, it’s my call. I’ve taken a vote, and I am unanimous in this.”

“But we’ll all be the ones paying the price for it if you’re wrong!” Xander argued.

“I’m not wrong,” Buffy stated flatly. “You guys have trusted me in all kinds of dangerous situations before. You’ve followed me into battles that we had no right to win, but we did. All I’m asking is that you trust me when I say this _isn’t one of those_. Spike is not going to hurt anyone after the chip is removed.”

“Except Riley,” Anya pointed out with a shrug. When everyone turned their worried eyes to her, she defended, “I mean, he just said so.”

Buffy turned around and looked at Spike, who was still standing silently behind her. “He’s not going to hurt Riley, or anyone else, isn’t that right, Spike?”

Spike scowled at her, but then sighed and rolled his eyes. “I’ll break his bloody finger if it pokes it in my chest again, I’ll tell ya that much.”

Buffy turned back around to face her friends. “He’ll be able to defend himself against humans this way. And, as we’ve just seen in the last few months with The Trio of Nerds, humans can be just as dangerous as demons. This is the right thing to do,” she asserted again.

“Can I have a word, Slayer?” Spike requested before anyone else could speak.

“In private, if ya please.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door at the back of the store which led to the training room.

With the door closed behind them, Spike opened up the papers that Riley had slapped against his chest and began to pace across the floor and read at the same time. Buffy stood silently, watching him, waiting for whatever it was he was going to say.

The first paper was a copy of an official report signed by both Riley and Sam that swore an oath that the escaped vampire, Hostile 17, had been ‘neutralized with extreme prejudice,’ and ‘no longer posed a threat against humanity.’

Spike snorted at that and shifted the other paper to the top to read.

The second was an official order from Riley Finn instructing the medical division to remove the chip from Spike’s brain. Only, he wasn’t identified as Spike, or William the Bloody, or even Hostile 17, but by a code name of ‘Sleeper.’

According to the request, Sleeper was a vampire with a soul who had been implanted with the chip so he could reasonably be trusted by the Slayer. His mission was to infiltrate her inner circle and report back on her activities to the Initiative. At this time, his services were no longer required, so the chip should be removed, and the vampire released from duty.

“Bloody fucking wanker,” Spike growled.

“What?” Buffy wondered, not having seen these particular papers before.

Spike looked up at her then, almost having forgotten she was there. “Gave me a bloody medal, then turned me into Benedict Arnold! Says I was a turncoat, working for him, spying on you lot.”

Buffy smirked and took the paper from his hand, reading it over quickly.

“Riley had to provide some reason for removing the chip,” she reasoned.

Spike snorted. “So he made sure I’d look like a bloody, two-faced git in the process.”

Buffy looked up at him. “You know, you have been known to play both sides against the middle before,” she reminded him.   

Spike frowned and looked down. “Yeah, but not against you, Buffy. Not even then,” he admitted.

“What about Adam?”

Spike scoffed. “Knew you’d crush Mr. Bits, pet. Was just making it a little more interesting, yeah? A bloke gets bored. Came through for ya in the end, didn’t I?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Sort of…” she acquiesced. “Spike, it doesn’t matter what’s on that report. The important thing is we can have that chip removed tomorrow night with it,” she reminded him.

Spike turned around and walked a few feet away, facing the wall. “Not sure that’s the most brilliant plan you’ve ever had, luv,” he declared, leaning one hand heavily against the wall and letting his head fall despondently.

“What? Why? I thought you’d be all peachy-keen and cherry pie about it. It’s what you’ve always wanted ever since they put it in you.”

Spike turned around slowly and looked at her gravely. “What if you’re wrong, Buffy?”

Buffy shook her head, taking a step toward him. “Were you not listening to my speech? That was a good speech! I practiced that speech. Cliff’s Notes version: I’m not wrong.”

“But what if you are?” Spike argued. “What if I hurt you, or _Dawn_ … You don’t know the things I’ve done, Buffy.”

“I know who you were,” Buffy declared with certainty, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You don’t know the half of it!” Spike raged at her, suddenly furious. He moved toward her like a wraith, silent and fleet. His fingers wrapped around her throat before she could blink, lifting her onto her tiptoes with an iron-fisted chokehold.

“Do you know how much blood you can drink from a girl before she'll die? I do. You see, the trick is to drink just enough, to know how to damage them just enough, so that they'll still cry when you –“

Spike dropped the unresisting Slayer, pushing her away, and buried his face in his hands, dropping to his knees in front of her.

“'Cause it's not worth it if they don't cry,” he choked out, sobbing.

“Spike,” Buffy cooed softly, dropping down onto her knees on the floor and putting her arms around him.

“I know who you were, and I know why you did those things. I’ve seen the demon inside you; I’ve seen the darkness, but I’ve seen the light, too. I know the darkness is deep and strong, but the light is bright and growing. I know who you are now, and you’re not the same person.

“I can see it now, looking back, how you’ve changed. Maybe it was the chip that started it, maybe it started before that – when you helped me save the world when Angelus wanted to destroy it, or when Dru left and you didn’t have to be _that_ Spike anymore – but you are not him anymore. You’ve fought against the darkness and you’ve been winning, slowly but surely.

“Your soul is damaged, but so is mine. We can get through this together. But I need you with me; I need you to be able to protect yourself against all threats, human or demon. I can’t lose you, don’t you understand that yet? You may not see how much you’ve changed, but I do.

“I believe in you, Spike.”

Spike collapsed against her, letting her hold him like a child, still sobbing and shaking his head negatively against her shoulder.

“I’m afraid, Buffy. I’ve never been afraid of anything in a hundred years, not Slayers or monsters or gods.” He looked up at her then, his blue eyes shimmering with tears. “But I’m afraid of _me_!”

Buffy gave him a small smile and gently kissed the tears from his eyes, cupping his damp cheeks in her palms. “Don’t you see? That only proves my point, Spike. You’ve changed. The old Spike would be jumping at this chance to be free, not fighting me on it. You’re afraid that the light inside you can’t defeat the darkness, _but it can_. I know it can! If you don’t trust yourself, then trust me.

“I promise, Spike, you’re strong enough. Do you believe in me?” she asked gently, her eyes searching his for the trust she knew was there.

Finally, Spike closed his eyes, more tears spilling out beneath his lashes with the gesture, and nodded slightly. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever believed in.”

Buffy pulled him against her again, hugging him tight and rocking gently on the floor of the training room.

“And I believe in you,” she whispered against his ear.  “You’re a good man, William.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up Next: The Army takes the chip out. Will they double-cross Buffy and Spike, or will Riley keep his word?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply aahhhh-mazing -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling! 
> 
> More to come soon!


	32. Young Adult Fantasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chipectomy

 

**The next night.**

Spike blinked his eyes, trying to get his bearings. His head was swimming, and there was a throbbing pain behind his eyes which stabbed up into his sinuses.

Two pairs of worried eyes looked down at him, one brown, one green. He blinked again, and the faces came into focus: Buffy and Sam. Riley, thankfully, had not attended the chip-removal procedure; Sam had made sure of that.

“Are you okay?” Buffy asked, laying her palm gently over his forehead.

Spike widened his eyes a moment, trying to clear his vision, then shook himself, trying to shake off the fog of anesthesia. “Yeah, reckon so,” he rasped out, beginning to sit up.

Buffy and Sam each grabbed an arm and helped him sit up, swinging his legs to the side of the narrow table that the Initiative had once used for their vampire implant trials, among other things.

Spike shook his head again and the dizziness and fog lifted a little further.

“Didn’t rumple m’ hair, did they?” he asked, running a hand back over his blond locks.

Buffy laughed. “You have army doctors operating on your brain, and what you’re worried about is your hair?”

Spike sniffed and sat up straighter. “Some would argue there’s not much they could do t’ damage my brain,” he asserted.

Buffy rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Well, don’t worry. They went up through your nose. Your hair is untouched.”

Spike grimaced at that, touching his nose gingerly. “Sick bastards,” he muttered. “Bloody disgusting, that is.”

“We should probably go, if you can,” Sam suggested, smothering a smile at Spike’s remarks. “I’m not sure how long they’ll leave the power on down here.”

Buffy looked around the large, empty space, clearly creeped out. “Yeah, heaven only knows what creepy-crawlies will come slithering out when the power goes off,” she added.

Spike slid off the table and onto his feet. He swayed a little and both Buffy and Sam steadied him, one on each side. “Bloke could get used t’ this,” he teased, wrapping an arm over each of their shoulders.

“Yeah, well, don’t,” Buffy warned, giving him a sharp glance as the three of them began making their way toward the elevator and the outside world.

* * *

 

“Where are we goin’?” Spike finally asked when they didn’t take the turn that led to his crypt or to Buffy’s house. He was still letting the girls help him walk, but more for the pleasure of having his arms around two lovely ladies than from necessity.

“Magic Box,” Buffy replied.

He quirked a brow at her. “All yer friends throwing a ‘Scourge o’ Europe’s Unleashed’ party, just fer me, are they?”

“Something like that,” Buffy hedged, as they turned into the alley behind the store. Buffy pulled out her key to the back door and opened it. The shop was closed, silent, dark, and empty. She flicked on the light in the training room and entered, followed by Sam, still assisting Spike.

“So … where’s the party, then?” Spike asked, looking around at the empty space as he took his arm off the brunette’s shoulders.

“Right here,” Buffy smirked. “Although it may be more of a ‘Let’s make sure the doctors did what they were supposed to do’ party,” she explained.

Spike’s brows furrowed. “How ya intend t’ do that? Not sticking anything up my nose, I hope!” he exclaimed, covering his nose protectively with one hand.

Buffy laughed. “No. Just need you to fight with Sam.”

“What?!” Spike exclaimed, dropping his hand and looking at the brunette.

“Always wanted to take on a legendary vamp,” she beamed at him. “Now’s my chance!”

“Yeah? Well my grandsire’s down in L.A, sure he’d love to have a go, pet,” Spike suggested, taking a step back from both of the clearly delusional women.

“Spike, we need to make sure it’s really gone, completely, not partially, or temporarily. Sam volunteered to … well … help test it,” Buffy explained.

The Slayer went over to the weapon’s wall and picked out two bōs, six-foot-long staffs made of semi-flexible hardwood, from the rack. She tossed one to Spike, which he caught deftly with one hand.

“Do you need me to warm you up, or are you okay now?” she asked, twirling the long, slender staff gracefully in her hand as if it was an extension of her body.

“Neither,” Spike shot back. “Not fighting with the girl.”

“You fight with _me_ all the time,” Buffy reminded him. “Aren’t I a girl?” she pouted.

“You’re the bloody Slayer,” Spike retorted.

“Yeah, and she’s a soldier … I think you called her Xena, Warrior Princess?” Buffy retorted, tossing the bō in her hand to Sam.

Spike tossed his weapon back to Buffy, playing musical weapons. “Why don’t you cuties start without me, yeah? I’ll just watch the deed – maybe join in later?” he suggested, wagging his brows suggestively. “If ya feel the need t’ remove any clothing during the fracas, ya won’t hear any objections from me.”

“Nice fantasy. Just keep dreaming, Spike,” Buffy retorted, tossing the bō right back to him as soon as she caught it.

The moment Spike had the weapon back in his hand, Sam whirled her whole body around, whipping the long staff in a wide arc, straight at Spike’s face. Spike reacted instinctively, raising his own weapon to block the blow.

In the next moment, there was a rapid ‘click-clack’ as the two warriors sparred with the weapons, striking and blocking in rapid succession. Spike backed away from Sam as she advanced, moving in a large circle in the training room to keep from being cornered. After a minute or so of this banter, Sam took a more offensive tact, feigning at Spike’s legs, but bringing the bō up instead and striking at his abdomen. Spike adjusted quickly, but not quickly enough. 

Sam was able to get inside the reach of Spike’s weapon with her feint. She ducked down below his block and swept a leg out at Spike’s ankles for a take-down. The vampire jumped over them, automatically whirling in the air and kicking one leg out at her mid-section at the same time. His boot landed solidly against her Kevlar vest at nearly the exact moment she’d sprung back up, creating a loud ‘thud’ in the nearly-empty room.

Sam stumbled back but didn’t fall. Grinning madly, she taunted, “You kick like—”

“A girl?” Spike filled in, looking at Buffy, then back at Sam. “Not even an insult, that.”

“I was gonna say like Finn,” she finished, stepping forward and whirling the bō over her head, smashing it straight down at Spike’s head.

Spike dodged back, just out of reach, and the staff bounced down on the padded floor, but Sam was ready for that. She used the upward momentum of the bounce to lift the staff up and jab the end directly into Spike’s stomach, right where he’d been so badly injured by the Suvolte.

Spike screamed in pain, clutching his stomach and doubling over. Sam launched herself at him, knocking him onto his back on the padded floor with a ‘whoof’ of expelled breath, the bō jarred from his hand.

In the next moment Sam was pressing the blunt end of her weapon against Spike’s chest as she straddled his prone form.

“You aren’t even trying,” she accused angrily. “Fight! Defend yourself! I thought you were some kind of hero, not a little coward who runs away from a challenge! Shit! I’ve had better fights with Ri!”

“Then go beat his bloody arse! Pay real money t’ see that!” Spike retorted, wrapping his hand around the staff to keep her from pressing it down any harder. Even though the end was blunt, if she pushed hard enough … well, it could get dusty in here.

Sam snorted derisively. “You know, Riley says you’re just a rebound fuck for the Slayer, taking sloppy seconds after him. Finn said she was practically a virgin when he first screwed her, but he made sure she was like a used-up whore when he was done with her. Seemed reasonable since she always begged him to fuck her like one—”

Spike growled, his demon rising in sudden rage. It sounded like a rumbling roll of thunder filling the room as he lost control. He yanked the bō from Sam’s hand with his left and flung it against the nearest wall, where it splintered into toothpicks. At nearly the same time, he punched her hard in the face with his right.

The blow whipped her head to the side, filling her mouth with blood and lifting her completely up and off him. She dropped onto mat with a thud, stars flashing behind her lids as pain exploded through her skull. Sam shook the stunned feeling off, spitting out the blood that threatened to choke her, and blindly rolled away from the angry vampire.

Spike pounced on the spot where she’d been a moment before, snarling and raging in fury. She kicked a booted-foot out at him, catching him in the temple, slowing him down a fraction of a second as he scrambled toward her. He was on her in the next moment, though, his growl vibrating the air palpably.  Both of them punched and kicked at the other with fists, elbows, knees and feet. Spike’s fangs raked at her flesh as she lifted her arms to block his lunge toward her neck. They wrestled for leverage, one getting a slight advantage, then the other, rolling over the mats like two lone wolves fighting to take over the pack, but neither gaining full control.

With another blow to Spike’s injured stomach, resulting in a frozen moment of pain, Sam finally scrambled free of his grasp. She kicked him hard in the jaw with the heel of her boot as she went, stunning him for another moment, and made it up to her feet before he could recover. As he made to rise, she drew back and kicked him hard in the ribs while he was on hands and knees, drawing another growl of rage and pain from the vamp. She kicked him again, and again, each harder and more vicious than the last. On the fourth kick, Spike grabbed her foot and twisted fiercely, pulling her off her feet as her whole body rotated in the air to keep from having her ankle, knee or hip dislocated.

She hit the mat again with a deafening thump but managed to kick him in the chin with her free foot, making him drop his hold on her. She rolled back to her feet neatly, picking up Spike’s dropped staff in one motion. By the time she gained her balance and turned back to him, Spike was also on his feet, crouched, ready to spring on her like a tiger on a deer.

Sam twirled the staff once, then swung at Spike’s face. He blocked the blow with a forearm, but Sam was ready, jabbing it at his stomach again. Ready for that tack, Spike knocked the blow aside, then grabbed the weapon with a steely grip before she could pull it back. He jerked it toward himself brutally, then shoved it back toward her just as violently. The end of the staff thrust hard against her solar plexus, but the vest she wore kept it from being the debilitating blow it might’ve otherwise been.

Spike roared in frustration and yanked the weapon from her hands with overwhelming strength, sending it sailing across the room to join the other one as a pile of kindling against the wall.

“Still ‘ave my weapon, don’t I?” he taunted, prowling slowly forward towards her, his golden eyes gleaming in fury. “Let’s ‘ave a little taste, shall we? You as hot and spicy as you smell, pet?”

Gasping for breath, Sam turned then, looking for something else to use as a weapon. She reached for a rack of dumbbells on the wall near her, intending to use one as a club, but Spike was faster. The vamp yanked her backwards by her ponytail, spinning her around, and away from the impromptu weapons. He pulled her back to his front and wrapped one leg around both of hers. Then he shoved her forward.

Unable to take a step because of her pinned legs, Sam fell face-first onto the mat. Spike followed her down, slamming his body against hers and knocking her breath out in a grunt of pain. He pinned her down with his body as she gasped and squirmed and tried to roll him off.  Spike slipped an iron-corded forearm around her throat and pulled tight, putting a stop to further gasps from the soldier for much-needed air.

“Show bloody Finn sloppy seconds,” he growled, his fangs hovering dangerously close to Sam’s carotid artery as the soldier tried vainly to pry, claw, scratch, pull, wrench, or otherwise remove his arm from her windpipe.

Buffy watched, taking a step forward toward them, biting her lip worriedly, ready to step in if things went too far … or well … _way, way, way_ too far.

Maybe she shouldn’t have had Sam get quite so graphic with the taunting, but she was sure Spike wouldn’t have given his all otherwise. If he had no intent to do harm, then the chip wouldn’t have fired; she needed him enraged, intent on inflicting pain, to make sure it was really, truly gone. Buffy had to be certain he could fight a human freely if he needed to, without any Initiative leash stopping him. She just didn’t trust the bastards to not double-cross them and implant something else without her seeing it.

She wanted him to be able to defend himself from all threats, human and demon. But now the only leash he had was his battered and bruised soul, that glint of humanity, that small fire within the darkness. Would it be enough?

“Come on, William, you can do it … fight it,” she muttered under her breath, her chest tight with nervous apprehension, her fists curled, ready to act. Had she been wrong? Was William not strong enough yet?

Suddenly, Spike loosened his grip on the soldier and the brunette gasped for air, taking in great lungsful with each breath. Spike released her completely then, his demon withdrawing as he rolled off and away from her. He ended in a seated position with his back against the nearest wall, his knees drawn up near his chest.

“Sorry … I’m sorry … bloody hell,” Spike muttered, hugging his legs to his chest, and dropping his head against his knees disconsolately.

Sam rolled over onto her back, rubbing her throat, still gasping for air like a landed fish, blood burbling from her lips as she gulped for much-needed oxygen.

Buffy let out a sigh of relief, feeling almost as winded as Sam just from watching and worrying. She quickly knelt next to the soldier, checking to make sure she was okay, or at least not seriously hurt.

“Tis but …  a … scratch,” the brunette rasped out between gasps, wiping the blood from her mouth with her already-bloodied sleeve, before waving Buffy off.

Buffy huffed out a small laugh of relief and touched a consolatory hand down on the soldier’s shoulder. “Good fight,” she complimented the brunette. “I’ve seen Spike take demons out with less trouble.”

Sam snorted, getting her wind back fractionally, trying to sit up.

Buffy helped her to a seated position, pulling her injured arm out straight to check it. Spike hadn’t actually bitten down on it, there were just a couple of deep scratches from his fangs, bloody and painful, but not life-threatening.

“Remind me to never … mention Ri’s name … around him … again,” Sam gasped out as she got her breath back a bit more.

Buffy laughed then and nodded. “I support that plan.”

“You’ll tell him that Ri didn’t … really say that stuff, right? And I didn’t … mean any of it,” the soldier implored, looking up at Buffy.

“I think he’s already figured that out,” the Slayer assured her.

Sure that Sam was okay, Buffy turned her attention to Spike, who was still sitting with his head against his knees, his back against the brick wall.

“Spike, it’s okay. She’s fine- _ish_ ,” Buffy assured him, squatting down next to him and laying a hand on his shoulder. “It worked, they really took it out.”

Spike looked up at her then, shaking his head miserably. “I hurt the girl. Didn’t mean to,” he admitted woefully.

“Spike, you defended yourself, and she’s fine. You stopped. You didn’t need the chip. William stopped the demon. Just like I said would happen,” Buffy assured him, sending a silent prayer to the saint of broken souls for the assist on that.

“You’re free, Spike. And you don’t need the chip anymore. This is of the good!

“Plus, if he-who-shall-not-be-named pokes a finger in your chest now, you can break it,” she offered brightly.

Spike looked up at her then, scowling. “Finn’s not fit to lick Voldemort’s boots,” he asserted dryly.

“I … uh … huh? Who’s Voldemort?” Buffy asked, frowning in confusion.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Demon … don’t like his name used,” he lied.

Sam had gotten up and walked over to the pair, still rubbing her throat, but with her breath mostly back. “Voldemort is the arch nemesis of Harry Potter, you know from the novels?” she outed Spike in a raspy voice. “No one uses his name in fear of bringing his wrath down upon them.”

Spike scowled up at her. “You know Harry Potter but not Monty Python? _Pffft_! Bloody soldiers!”

Sam grated out a chortle through her ravaged throat. “You know what they say about war? Interminable boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. It’s the same fighting and chasing demons. Lots of time to read whatever books are handy, even young adult fantasy.”

Buffy raised her brows, looking at Spike. “ _Young adult_ _fantasy_?” she asked, giving him a scandalous look.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Not _that_ kinda fantasy, Slayer. Witchcraft an’ the like. What muggles think of as fantasy. What we call ‘life’ on the Hellmouth.”

“Muggles? Man, I need to catch up on my pop culture references.” Buffy laughed and stood up, offering Spike a hand, which he took, joining her and Sam on his feet.

Spike winced a little when he straightened up, touching a hand to his stomach where Sam had jabbed the staff and kicked him a few times.

“Sorry about the cheap shots,” Sam grimaced. “I didn’t reopen anything, did I?”

Spike shook his head. “No such thing as a cheap shot against a vamp, pet,” he assured her. “Gotta take every advantage ya can. I’ll do.

“You okay? Didn’t damage ya, did I?” he asked, looking her over with concern.

“Nothing that won’t feel better in a day or two,” she assured him. Then almost as one voice, Sam and Buffy said:

“I’ve had worse.”

“She’s had worse.”

The two women looked at each other and laughed convivially, any residual tension from the fight drifting off on the wings of their shared mirth.

“Well, I best be going. Ri and I are heading to Nepal tomorrow, got our orders this morning,” she told the blondes.

“Be careful out there,” Buffy offered sincerely, stepping forward and giving the brunette a tight hug, which the soldier returned heartily, only wincing slightly from the pain in her bruised and battered ribs.

“Thank you for everything,” Buffy whispered thickly.

Sam returned the hug and nodded. “Anytime,” she replied, as Buffy released her. “If we can help with anything, just call or email. I’m serious. We can usually get some sort of transport within a day or two.”

Buffy nodded. “Got it,” she assured the soldier.

Sam turned to Spike with a sad smile, and Buffy took a step back.

“I can’t thank you enough…” she began, and Spike cut her off with a shake of his head.

“Thought we’d covered that, pet,” he rebuked lightly. “You watch your back, yeah? Hate to see anything happen to it, I would.”

Sam felt a bloom of tenderness in her chest with his words and his look of concern. She smiled and nodded, acknowledging his warning with a warm, grateful, “Copy that.”

Sam stepped forward and laid her palm gently on Spike’s cheek, touching a soft kiss to the other. “She’ll catch you,” she whispered to him, her misty eyes locking with his for a moment as she pulled back.

She turned away then, took a deep breath, and headed for the door, not looking back, Spike and Buffy watching her go in silence.

“Xena,” Spike called after her, suddenly in motion, striding across the short distance to her.

Sam turned back and was immediately caught up in another tight hug, this time by the unleashed vampire. “Thank you for everything, pet,” he rasped out from a tight throat. “Can’t ever repay ya.”

Sam was still smiling as he released her, her glimmering brown eyes locking on his again. “I guess we’re even, then, huh?”

Spike nodded slowly. “Even, then,” he agreed.

Sam leaned forward and touched a soft kiss to his lips, tasting him just a fraction too long for it to be completely chaste. Pulling back, her glimmering, dark eyes met his one last time before she turned abruptly and was out the door.

The soldier was lost in the night before Spike could even react. He stood, dumbstruck, staring after her, his fingers lightly exploring the warmth left by her lips against his. Buffy stepped up beside him, hooking her arm in his, and looking out the door in the direction Sam had gone.

“I think you have another admirer,” the Slayer observed coolly, pulling the door closed with her free hand. “That was quite the goodbye kiss, you know, for _friends_. Was there tongue involved?”

“NO!” Spike shrieked as a sudden, overwhelming fear for the safely of his naughty bits washed over him. “No tongue! I … didn’t …” he stammered, looking at Buffy with wide eyes. “I mean, wasn’t me, pet. I didn’t puke on her! Bloody hell, I beat her up!”

Buffy shrugged nonchalantly. “Seems to be how you make all the really hot girls want to kiss you.”

Spike looked at her warily. Was this some kind of trick? “That so?” he asked cautiously, still suspicious.

“Mmm-hmmm,” she agreed in a sing-song tone.

“So … if I beat you up, you’d kiss me?” he wondered, turning to face her.

“Well, you could _try_ to beat me up,” she countered. “And I _might_ kiss you.”

“ _Try_ , is it?”

“Let’s face it, Spike, I’m just better than you.”

“That right?” he challenged, narrowing his eyes dangerously at her.

“That’s right,” she agreed, tightening her grip on his arm and suddenly flipping him backwards, through a full somersault in the air, and dropping him onto his back on the mat a few feet away.

Spike laughed maniacally as she dove at him. He caught her in midair with his hands on her shoulders and one foot in her middle and flipped her like an acrobat over his head so she, too, landed hard on the mat.

“That all ya got, Slayer?” Spike rumbled jubilantly, as he sprang back to his feet.

“Not by a long shot!” Buffy retorted, launching herself at him amidst a chorus of wicked laughter and raucous shrieks of exultation. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chip is out! Riley and Sam are gone. How will things go now that he's free? Will things be different for him? Will Xander be more respectful? Or will he actually be worse? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Harry Potter and Voldemort are, of course, the property of JK Rowling and Pottermore. No copyright infringement intended, just having fun.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply out of this world -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally amazing! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks!


	33. Keep the Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike tries to order a bloody milkshake. How hard can this be?

****

 

**The next night.**

At work, Buffy sighed heavily, waiting for the family of five to make up their minds about what they wanted for dinner. She leaned against the counter and just closed her eyes a moment, dreaming of a different life, one that didn’t include smelling like fried flesh, scraping gum off the undersides of the tables after closing, or dealing with other people’s bratty kids squirting packets of ketchup at her.

“Are you even listening?” the father demanded, shaking Buffy from her dream of escape, and back to reality.

“Of course I am,” she snapped back, opening her eyes. “Ummm …could you just repeat that?”

The man rolled his eyes and sighed derisively. “Three Doublemeat Medleys. Two with extra pickle, and one with no pickle. Add cheese to one of the ones with extra pickle, and tomato to the one with no pickle. Two Doublemeat Kids Medleys. One with cheese, one with no tomato but extra pickle…”

Buffy’s brain zoned out as the man rambled, and she punched the buttons on the register, it now having become something she could do by rote. ‘ _God, please get me out of here’_ , she prayed silently, pushing the button for extra pickles plus cheese.

“Slayer? Are you even listening to me?”

Buffy snapped her attention back, centering on the customer standing in front of her. She looked around, but the family of five were already sitting down eating their meal. She didn’t even remember taking their money or giving them their food. For a moment she wondered if she’d been hit with some kind of whammy, like that thing the Trio did to make time jump on her, but then she decided it was just utter and complete tedium that had done it.

“Spike?! I don’t have a break for another three hours,” she informed him, focusing her attention back to the here and now. She looked around for her boss, but he wasn’t in sight, so she relaxed a little.

“Not ‘ere for a break, pet,” he replied, squinting up at the too-bright menu on the board behind her. “Can I get one of those thick ice creams in a cup with the chunks o’ candy in them?” he requested. “Large. Butterfinger, if ya please.”

Buffy sighed. “That’s Dairy Queen, Spike. What are you doing?”

Spike frowned. “Then one of those thick chocolate ones – a Chilly, or a Freezie … err …that Snowman-y thing. Large,” he tried.

“ _Frosty_.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “Wendy’s.”

“Right then, how about one of those orange slushy things, tastes like an orange creamsicle?” he continued.

“Spike! That’s Orange Julius! What are you doing?” she hissed at him.

Spike’s frown deepened as he looked away from the menu and focused on her. “What _do_ you ‘ave here, then?”

“Nothing good,” she admitted.

“Right, give me one o’ those, then. Large,” he ordered. “Hold the pickles. They give me gas.”

Buffy rubbed her eyes in frustration. “Spike, what are you doing?” she beseeched him again, on the verge of begging.

“Trying to order something. Which you’re supposed to get for me, if I’m understandin’ this whole process correctly,” he replied logically, giving her a patient smile.

“Also, you’re supposed t’ smile, and be polite and cheerful. Maybe ya need to get a refresher course in customer service from Anya,” he suggested, still smiling pleasantly.

“Spiiiike,” she growled, low and threatening, but was cut off when her latest boss and recent college-grad, Rory, walked up behind her and asked, “Is there something wrong, Buffy?”

Buffy jumped and gave Spike a wide-eyed, ‘look what you’ve done now!’ glare.

“You know we have a high-performance standard to maintain,” Rory continued in a grating, saccharine tone, stepping closer to the counter as he put all the skills he’d learned while earning his ‘Bowling Industry Management and Technology’ degree to best use. “Taking orders and providing, hot, fast, delicious, nutritious meals in under five minutes to satisfied, happy, and contented guests is not only our goal, but our pledge.”

The enthusiasm in his voice almost made Buffy puke, but she turned a bright, Colgate-smile on her boss. “No problem, I was just helping him decide. So, that’ll be one Doublemeat Medley, extra pickles,” she stated, turning her fake smile toward her customer.

Spike gave her boss a satisfied nod, and the git in the bright clown outfit wandered away to be sickeningly enthusiastic elsewhere.

“You’ll pay the price, not me, pet,” Spike remarked with a smirk, turning back to Buffy.

“Five dollars and twenty-eight cents,” she told him flatly, holding out her hand for the money.

“Bloody hell, when did inedible, food-like products get t’ be so ruddy expensive? Don’t tell me, it’s the pickles, innit?”

“Yes, we import them from Siberia. They’re special ice-grown pickles, cultivated by political exiles in the Ural Mountains. They require storing in a layer of permafrost during their long and movie-less flight back to civilization, so they stay full of gassy-goodness,” Buffy mocked, her hand still held out, waiting impatiently for the payment.

Spike cocked a brow at her. “Didn’t realize you knew where the Ural Mountains were.”

“I know lots of things. Such as, if you don’t stop screwing around with me at work, I’m going to drive a stake through your heart,” she informed him, keeping her bright, quite fake, smile in place.

“Not screwing around – save that for your breaks, luv,” he reminded her, wagging his brows at her suggestively while digging in the pocket of his jeans for some money.

“Here we go. Five dollars and twenty-eight cents, give or take a few zeros,” he announced, placing the check from the Army into her palm. “You keep the change. Call it a tip, yeah?” 

He nodded, satisfied, then added, “Oh, could ya make that to-go? These fluorescent lights give me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Spike … I … can’t,” Buffy stammered, trying to hand the check back to him.

“’Course you can,” he objected. “Just take the grub off the tray and put it in a bag. _To-go_.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Buffy insisted, trying to give the check back to him, but he’d clasped his hands behind his back and stepped away from the counter, so she couldn’t shove it into any of his pockets.

“Customer’s always right,” he informed her smugly. “Reckon your boss would agree.”

Spike raised a hand and signaled at her boss to come back to the counter.

“Yes, sir, how may I help you?” the man asked, sounding completely professional, but looking like an idiotic orange traffic-cone with a chicken on his head in his uniform.

“Yeah, just wanted t’ let you know that this woman here is the best employee you got or will ever have. And she quits.”

“Spike!” Buffy hissed at him, then turning to her boss she added, “I don’t know him, and I don’t quit.”

“She does quit. Straightaway. She’ll bring yer clown costume back and pick up her last check at the end of the week,” Spike informed the man in no uncertain terms.

Then, looking back at Buffy, he added earnestly. “You’re better than this, Buffy, and I can finally do something to really help ya. Let’s go, pet. This isn’t you. You’re not made for this. You’re a warrior! You save the world! You’re a bright light, not a bloody tool in a burger joint that doesn’t even have candy creams.”

Tears sprang to Buffy’s eyes and she closed them, trying desperately to keep them back. “Spike, I can’t… it’s yours,” she tried again, her voice wavering.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t wished and prayed for a way outta here,” Spike replied sincerely. “Wish granted,” he announced smugly.

Buffy opened her eyes and looked at him, her unshed tears released from the damn of her lids and trickled down her cheeks. “You’re not a genie in a bottle.”

Spike grinned at her haughtily. “No, I’m a bloody hero,” he reminded her, touching the medals that still hung on his duster in illustration. He became more serious then, nearly pleading with her, “Let me actually save you for once, instead a’ just dreamin’ about it. Let me keep my promise, Buffy. _Please_.”

Buffy looked down at the check, her vision shimmering with tears, then back up at Spike. He extended his hand to her, silently inviting her to come with him.

Buffy blinked back her tears and looked at her very confused, chicken-headed boss.

“The customer’s always right,” she informed Rory with a wavering smile. “I quit.”

Apparently, Rory wasn't at the top of his class while getting that Bowling Industry Management and Technology degree, as it hadn’t quite prepared him for this situation. He just stared at her blankly, frozen in place like a statute.

Buffy pulled her stupid hat off and took Spike’s hand, launching herself over the counter in one powerful leap. Spike caught her in mid-air and swung her around, his duster billowing out behind him like Superman’s cape, fit for a hero.

“Thank you … I …” Buffy stammered when he set her down on her feet, his arms still around her, holding her close.

Spike shook his head. “It’s me should be thankin’ you, Buffy.”

She shook her head, not understanding, and pulled back to look into his eyes.

“All those nights I dreamed of savin’ you … after you … when you were gone. But when it mattered, I didn’t. Wasn’t fast enough, clever enough, strong enough.” Spike shook his head, blinking back his emotions. “Now I can. Finally. I can at least save you from this death of a thousand cuts. I can keep my promise.”

Buffy caressed his cheek gently, her eyes locked with his. “I know you always keep your promises, Spike. You save me every day. Believe me, you pull me out of the darkness and keep me sane. I’m proud of you. You are a hero – you’re _my_ hero.”

Buffy smiled and looked down at his medals. “Says so right here,” she teased lovingly, touching a finger to one of the shiny, golden medallions.

Spike bit his bottom lip and nodded. “Thank you for that. Means more than I can say, comin’ from you.”

Buffy kissed him deeply and passionately, long enough for the father she’d served earlier to suggest they, “Get a room!”

Buffy giggled, breaking the kiss, and whispered, “Good idea,” against Spike’s lips. “I want to do some _very heroic_ things to you.”

Spike rumbled a rich, luscious laugh against her lips in reply. The two turned as one, clasping hands, and together they seemed to float out of the Doublemeat Palace on a cloud of kept promises and genuine trust, the fumes of ‘secret ingredient’ fading like a bad dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will someone get Spike a damn Butterfinger Blizzard, please?! Hold the pickles!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are utterly amazing -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally astounding! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks!


	34. I Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ingredients: Frivolous shopping, supernatural fences, crumbling castle walls, The Clash, and Motown.   
> Mix well.   
> Enjoy with an elephant in a pink tutu and tap shoes and a high horse with blinders on.

 

Buffy and Dawn stopped in at the Magic Box the next evening feeling happier than they had in a very long time. Everything was right with the world. That afternoon they’d gone to the bank with the check Spike had given Buffy and she opened a savings account, filled up her pitiful checking account with enough money to actually pay the bills, and the two had done a small bit of frivolous shopping afterwards. They’d even bought Spike a couple of new CDs for his music collection – ‘Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols’ and ‘Combat Rock’ by The Clash –  and a CD player for his crypt.

Ignoring the ‘Closed’ sign on the door, they walked into Anya’s shop, laughing and chattering brightly. The mood in the shop, however, was quite different than the Summers girls’ upbeat levity. Buffy could feel it the moment they walked in. Dawn, however, didn’t seem to notice as she continued talking animatedly about the new shoes she’d gotten and how Doris Demeter was going to totally turn green when she saw them at school on Monday.

Dawn stopped to look at a new display of crystal dragons Anya had just gotten in as Buffy continued to the back of the room and the research table where her friends sat, looking nervous, worried and stony-faced.

“What’s with the tragedy masks?” Buffy asked apprehensively, setting her shopping bags down on a chair and looking from Xander to Willow to Tara. Buffy remained standing. She could hear Anya doing something down in the storeroom and thought maybe they needed her, Buffy, to stab a mummy hand or something down there, perhaps that’s why they’d asked her to stop by.

“Buffy,” Willow began carefully. “Xander wanted … umm, I mean … _I feel_ …”

“Oh, God,” Buffy groaned, cutting her off. “Is this another intervention? Demons Anonymous has reconvened?”

They all looked a little guilty, their eyes shifting around the room, unable to meet Buffy’s.

“Buff, look … it’s just … Spike,” Xander took over, finally looking at her. “Setting him free is just asking for trouble! He’s dangerous! Have you forgotten?”

“Use ‘I feel’ statements,” Willow hissed at him under her breath.

“ _I feel_ ,” Xander began again _,_ “that removing the chip from Spike is a ginormous-ly awful idea! It’s like a cliché horror movie come to life! All we need to do now is start walking backwards through doors, tripping over thin air, and chanting ‘Bloody Mary’ into the mirror three times!”

Buffy sighed and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at Xander. “How many times do we need to have this conversation, Xan?”

“As many times as it takes for you to see that an un-chipped and un-dusty Spike is a ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ waiting to happen, only, you know, less funny,” Xander contended.

“Okay. Fine,” Buffy replied flatly. “Tell me then, what has he done to you? I mean, of everyone here, it seems like you’d be top on his hit list. You know, since Riley’s gone to play with Yetis in Nepal, that leaves you as the Grand Poohbah of the National Anti-Spike Brotherhood Outpost and Stake Factory. I must say, you look good for having been attacked by a vampire… very animated, almost like you still had all your blood.”

“Well… he hasn’t done that yet,” Xander admitted, clamping a hand protectively over the side of his neck.

“Oh … then maybe he threatened you?” Buffy suggested. “Made his scary face?”

“Well … no, not yet.”

“Burned your apartment building down with you in it?”

“No…”

“Ran your car off the road.”

“No…”

“Poisoned your pizza? Drowned you in a bowl of Fruit Loops? Buried you in an ant hill? Tied you to the train tracks? Dropped you into a vat of acid? Replaced your Viagra with cyanide?”

“I don’t take Viagra!” Xander objected angrily. “Well … just that once.”

Buffy arched a brow at him.

“Okay, twice …”

“Xanderrr,” she drawled warningly.

“Fine – no, he hasn’t done any of that … yet!” he acquiesced. 

“Ahhh … okay … so, what? He flung angry thoughts at you?” Buffy suggested next.

“Buffy… you have to see this from our side of the supernatural fence!” Xander insisted.

“Oh! Wow … really? I have to see it from _your_ side of the fence? How about you see it from _my_ side of the fence once in a while, Xander!” the Slayer demanded. “Where should I begin? Oh, how about: Spike’s changed. Spike’s on our side. Spike’s proven it over and over! You _really_ don’t want to make me list it all for you _again_! I get _cranky_ when I have to keep repeating myself.

“Spike is a strong warrior who can help me stay alive, which, I might point out, will help _you_ stay alive. So, just what is on _your_ side of the fence?” Buffy asked, glaring at him.

“Spike is a killer,” Xander replied angrily. “He’s a vampire! He’s double-crossed us before. He’s a murderer! How do the few good things he’s done make up for all the vile things he’s done in the past?”

“Anya!” Buffy called down toward the storeroom. “Could you come up here, please?”

Xander looked worried as Anya appeared at the door to the storeroom a moment later. She looked a little disheveled and exasperated, there was a streak of dirt across her cheek, and she held her hands out away from her body, as if they were covered in something nasty. “What do you want? I’m incredibly busy. The crate of frog legs broke open and they’re hopping and leaping all over everything! I believe they were packed in Astroglide, which makes it nearly impossible for me to recapture the slippery bastards, on top of being just a terrible misuse of quality lube.”

“Uh … right,” Buffy stammered a moment before regaining her composure. “Just a quick question: How long were you a Vengeance Demon?”

“ _Buffy_ …” Xander tried to object, but she shot him a death glare and pointed a threatening finger at him and he shut up.

“A thousand years,” Anya answered, trying to brush a bit of hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist.

“And, in those thousand years, how many people would you say you killed, or, you know, otherwise maimed and mutilated?” Buffy wondered.

Anya shrugged. “I didn’t really keep count, but I was D’Hoffryn’s very favorite,” she admitted brightly. “I was awarded ‘Vengeance Demon of the Year’ at the Christmas party a hundred years in a row! Then they set a new rule that you couldn’t win it more than a hundred times. It was completely unfair. They were just jealous little babies who couldn’t stand to lose,” she grumbled.

“Yeah, that would totally suck,” Buffy agreed. “So … round estimates, a thousand years, if you cursed say, five people a year, even with my limited math skills, I figure that would be five thousand.”

Anya scowled. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t win Demon of the Year for that! What do you think I am? An underachiever?”

“Right … of course not. So … double that?”

Anya shrugged. “Closer.”

“And, um, when you first came to Sunnydale, it was to …?” Buffy prompted.

“Grant a wish for a girl Xander scorned, of course! Cordelia Chase – she wanted to keep you from ever coming to Sunnydale,” Anya explained to the Slayer.

Suddenly something crashed down below in the storeroom and Anya jumped and let out a curse before turning around and hurrying back down to try and corral the fleeing, slippery frog’s legs.

Buffy turned back to Xander. She arched a brow at him, lowered her silencing finger and re-crossed her arms huffily over her chest.

Xander sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Xander, I’m not going to say this again: get over it,” Buffy demanded. “Get off your high horse, because, honestly, it’s not that high. You’re riding an old, worn-out, blind nag with a broken leg – the same one you’ve been riding since high school – and I, for one, am tired of seeing you beat the poor thing. I keep hearing how dangerous Spike is, but I see you all sitting here in perfect health. I keep hearing how he was a murderer, and yet, you’re married to the Vengeance Demon of the Year times a hundred. Daddy’s favorite little murdering monster!

“You seem to want me to live in a black and white world, and to always stay in the light like I live on The Good Ship Lollipop instead of the Hellmouth! All the while, _you_ get to dance around in the gray areas. Well, it doesn’t work that way.  You get to love whoever you want, regardless of their past. Well, here’s a news flash: So. Do. I,” Buffy informed him in no uncertain terms.

“You … you’re … saying … you … _love Spike_?!” Xander stammered, his eyes as wide as saucers.

“What? No … I didn’t say that!” Buffy backtracked.

“You kinda did,” Willow interjected, finally able to get a word in as Xander spluttered and choked.

“No, I didn’t! I just meant that … cos, you know, Xan’s married to an ex-demon, that … obviously pasts can be forgiven, and I can … date ... whoever I want,” Buffy stammered. “And … that’s so not the point! Spike’s not hurting anyone! He won’t hurt anyone!”

“B-Buffy, it’s okay if you do love him,” Tara soothed, trying to smooth things over.

“I know that!” Buffy snapped. “It’s just … not what I meant. So, get over it and stop trying to shove words in my mouth and intervention me!”

Buffy grabbed up her shopping bags and whirled on her heels, heading back for the door of the shop, her good mood ruined.

“Let’s go!” she barked at Dawn, who had been standing back listening to the exchange. “I need to … buy something that I don’t need.”

Dawn hesitated, waiting until the bell tinkled above the door with Buffy’s departure before taking a few steps back toward the intervention group. “If you want to keep Buffy as a friend, you better start figuring out that butting into her life like this is way uncool,” the girl informed them. “She loves Spike … even if she’s still standing knee-deep in the waters of ‘de Nile’. Anyone with half a brain can see it – which I guess leaves you out, Xander, but I’m surprised at you two,” Dawn insisted, looking at Willow and Tara.

Xander exclaimed, “Hey! I have half a brain!” in an offended tone while Willow and Tara both looked abashed. This whole thing had been Xander's idea; they'd let him badger them into it and were regretting it now.

“W-we didn’t mean … we weren’t … saying…” Tara began defending meekly, but Dawn cut her off.

“Good. Then it won’t be a problem to stop saying whatever it is you _weren’t saying_. She loves him, he loves her. So, grow up and start acting like her _friends_ instead of the Spanish Inquisition, or you’ll have me to answer to. And I’m way scarier than Spike. _I know all your secrets_.”

They all looked at her with confused, wary eyes, wondering just what secrets Dawn might know, all feeling suitably rebuked. Dawn lifted her chin defiantly before twirling on her heel, her long hair flying out in a curtain of chestnut silk, and followed her sister outside for more retail therapy to restore their good moods.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 

**Several nights later.**

Buffy pushed open the creaky door of Spike’s crypt at nine p.m. sharp, as it had stated on the written invitation that Clem had delivered to her house that morning. The handwritten note had invited her to join Spike for dinner here, formal attire requested.

As the days went by and Chipless-Spike hadn’t actually killed anyone or even made his scary face in their direction, the Scoobies seemed to relax more around both Buffy and Spike. Even Xander had been, if not exactly friendly, at least not surly or openly hostile to Spike, and he hadn’t brought up anything more to Buffy about her relationship status.

Buffy had been alternating between sleeping at her house or at Spike’s crypt, depending on what was going on with Dawn and Willow. Buffy made sure Dawn wasn’t left alone in the house overnight, but having Spike stay over when Dawn or Willow were there generally hadn’t been the best idea, since ‘stealth’ wasn’t really one of their finer qualities when it came to the bedroom.

When Buffy knew Willow, and now sometimes Tara, who had started staying over more often, would be home with Dawn, or if Dawn would be out for the night, the lovers would stay at Spike’s for the privacy it offered. Spike knew that Dawn was attending a sleepover at her friend Janice’s house tonight, so Buffy wouldn’t be missed, and it would give Willow and Tara a little more privacy, too.

Buffy wasn’t entirely sure what degree of ‘formal’ Spike intended for tonight. Prom formal? Having to go to court formal? Red carpet formal? Meet the Queen formal? Funeral formal?  There were so many levels of formal to choose from! Since she wasn’t really sure, she went with the fallback that works for nearly any occasion: the little black dress.

She’d splurged again and gone shopping after receiving his invitation, buying a new dress for the night. She knew she needed to be careful with the money Spike had given her. It looked like a lot – it _was_ a lot – but it needed to last since she had no current above-poverty-level job prospects. She knew that frivolous spending would cut into it quickly if she wasn’t careful. But, she figured since Spike had given her the money, that buying a dress to wear at his invitation wasn’t really that frivolous, it was almost an obligation. She was actually acting responsibly.

This little black dress was a halter top, which left her shoulders and back bare. The straps that went from the bodice up and around her neck were studded with large, emerald-cut diamonds – or, well, sparkly rhinestones, anyway. The bodice was form-fitting, showing her curves, and cut low enough to tease but not reveal too much. The skirt was an above-the-knee, gentle A-line that flowed around her like a soft cloud when she walked. If she twirled – okay, yes, she might’ve done that in front of the mirror at home – it floated out and up, revealing a lacy, red thong beneath. She had not splurged on new shoes but had some that looked like they were made for the dress. Sexy black sandals with three-inch stiletto heels, which had the exact same bright rhinestones that were on her dress along the straps which encircled her ankles.

She’d continued the diamondy-theme in her hair, pulling it back from her face and holding it there with sparkling, intricate, rhinestone combs on each side. Beyond the combs, her short, blonde locks flowed into a cloud of soft curls at the back.

“Spike?” she called, pushing the screeching door closed behind herself and looking around. There was a path of white rose petals leading from the front door to the trapdoor which stood open to his bedroom below. Lining each side of the path were several red pillar candles, all flickering from the light breeze that came in with her.

Buffy smiled at the sight, a warm glow blooming in her chest. What had Spike said about who he had been? A poet and a romantic? Well, she still hadn’t gotten him to share any poetry with her, but the romantic was certainly in evidence tonight.

As Buffy drew closer to the open trapdoor, walking slowly along the rose-petal path, just to make it last longer, she heard soft music coming from below.  Buffy’s smile turned into an irrepressible grin when Marvin Gaye singing, ‘Let’s Get It On’ drifted up to meet her. She stopped near the open entrance and looked down into the cozy room where she had spent so much time since coming back from the dead.

Spike stepped into view, lighting a few more candles, apparently unaware that she was there, or at least pretending that he didn’t know a Slayer was standing right above him. Buffy rolled her eyes at the pretense but continued to watch in silence.

As she watched and listened, he sang along softly to the Motown song, moving gracefully to the slow music, as he completed his final preparations for their dinner. The song ended and a new one began, another Motown love song which proclaimed, ‘I believe when I fall in love with you, it will be forever.’

([Stevie Wonder, I Believe ](https://youtu.be/H--_-gPX3Nw))

_Shattered dreams, worthless years_  
Here am I encased inside a hollow shell  
Life began, then was done  
Now I stare into a cold and empty well

_The many sounds that meet our ears_  
The sights our eyes behold  
Will open up our merging hearts  
And feed our empty souls

_Come on, let's fall in love_  
You're the woman I've been waiting for  
Come on, let's fall in love  
You're the girl that I really adore

_I believe when I fall in love with you, it will be forever_

Buffy bit her lip and blinked back the emotions that rose up from her chest. She remembered her near-admission to her friends at their so-called intervention the other day.  It had flustered her at the time and she’d denied it but, in her heart, she knew that they were right – she had meant it – she did love Spike. She also knew he needed to hear it from her, more than that, he _deserved_ to hear it. She just didn’t know if she could say it. Saying those particular words seemed to always signal the beginning of the end, and she wasn’t sure if she could take even one more tragic ending without completely unraveling.

_I believe when I fall in love with you, it will be forever._

Buffy took a deep breath and dabbed gently at the corners of her eyes, blotting away all the emotions that had suddenly stirred up. She looked back at the rose-petal path, and let her heart fill with warmth again, the smile returning to her face. This was Spike. He would catch her … he wouldn’t let her crash on the rocks. He just wouldn’t. This time, Romeo and Juliet, the star-crossed lovers, would live happily ever after, even if it killed them both.

“Spike?” she called again, feeling more centered, surer of her heart than ever before. He wouldn’t break his promise. He wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t betray her. He wouldn’t let her unravel.

“Down here, pet,” he called back, walking back into view below the open door and looking up.

“Ummm … could you turn around maybe? Look the other way?” she asked, peering down at him.

Spike’s brows went up. “Reckon so, any particular reason?” he wondered, even as he turned away from the door and the ladder leading down.

“Well, it’s just … you could look right up my dress from there,” she explained, starting down the ladder.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he pointed out with a smirk.

“But you haven’t seen it _tonight_ ,” she countered, touching down on the soft carpets below the ladder.

Spike turned around, hearing her behind him, and his eyes softened into that awestruck look he sometimes gave her, his head tilting in that irresistible way he had as he drank her in.

That look made Buffy feel equal parts sex goddess and vestal virgin. She tried to channel the sex goddess, and not fidget uncomfortably under his scrutiny, but it took most of her Slayer power to do it.

“Do you like it?” she asked at last, turning in a slow circle, careful to not twirl and reveal too much too early in the evening. Dinner had been promised, after all.

Spike bit his bottom lip, his eyes traveling over her almost like a physical caress.  “You’re ravishing, Buffy. A goddess,” he said at last, his eyes finally coming to rest upon hers when she was facing him again.

The warm glow in her heart bloomed again and rose up, tinging her chest, neck, and cheeks with a pink blush.

“Thank you. You look pretty hot yourself,” she observed, touching a hand down lightly on his lapel.

It was the same suit he’d worn to the Harris wedding – dark blue slacks and jacket, and a French-blue dress shirt— but with a different tie. This one was dark blue, like his suit, but with a paisley design that matched his shirt. He had a white rose in the boutonniere on his left breast, matching the other dozen that Buffy could see in a vase on the table beyond.

Spike looked down at himself, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle from his jacket. “A bit out of practice in the art of formal attire,” he admitted, feeling a little self-conscious.

“Well, you couldn’t prove it by me,” she assured him. “You look very handsome.”

“Yeah?” he asked, genuinely touched.

“Yeah,” she confirmed, pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

Spike cleared his throat, attempting to remain a gentleman, and stepped back from her, turning to invite her to the table. Buffy walked over the few feet and took in the spread on the small, square table.

The first thing she noticed was the new, formal white tablecloth that covered the dated, chipped, pink Formica. She immediately hoped she didn’t spill anything on it over the course of the evening and stain it. A vase of long-stemmed white roses adorned the center of the table, with two formal, bone china place-settings at right angles to each other, all set out and ready for them. White pillar candles in varying heights filled one of the other two places at the table, and a bottle of champagne cooled in an ice bucket at the other.

Spike pulled her chair out for her and Buffy took a seat, allowing him to help her slide it back in. Before he sat down, he popped the cork on the champagne, sending it flying across the large, literally cavernous, room, and poured them each a glass. Taking his seat next to her, Spike held his glass up for a toast.

“To the most beautiful woman in the world,” he declared, eyes soft with unhindered adoration.

“Wherever she may be,” Buffy added with a smile, touching her glass to his with a small ‘tink’, before taking a sip of the sweet bubbly.

Spike chuckled but drank wither her, never taking his eyes off her.

“Dress is new, innit?” he asked reaching out a finger to touch the rhinestones on the straps. He allowed his fingers to slip off them casually and linger on the warm, bare skin of her shoulder.

“Do you know every piece of clothing I own?” she wondered, keeping her voice casual as little sparks danced across her skin where he was touching her.

Spike shook his head negatively, but then admitted, “Intimately.”

“I’m not going to ask what that means,” Buffy laughed, taking another sip of bubbly and looking around the underground cavern. There were candles on nearly every flat surface, casting a soft glow over the entire space. Their scent mingled with the roses on the table, creating a sweet, romantic cocktail for the senses. The music was still playing softly, more Motown love songs floating gently through the air, adding to the mood. She could also smell food but couldn’t immediately tell where the savory aroma was coming from.

“It’s beautiful down here, Spike. The roses are amazing, and all the candles. It’s almost like a different place,” she observed, looking back at him. “And the rose petal path upstairs was a nice touch.”

Spike smiled in pleasure at knowing his efforts had been successful. He was a bit out of practice in the art of romance, as well.

“Glad you like it, pet,” he acknowledged sincerely. “Are you ravenous? Or would you honor me with a dance before dinner?”

“Well, Slayer here, so pretty much always ravenous,” she admitted, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth a moment, and then releasing it flirtatiously, conveying that food wasn’t the only thing she was ravenous for. “But I’d love a dance with you.”

Spike rose and was behind her, pulling her chair out, before Buffy could push her back on her own. She made an ‘oops’ face. “Sorry, I just … never. I don’t think anyone ever did that for me before.”

“Bloody shame that, luv,” he declared truthfully, extending one hand, palm up, for her to take as she rose. 

“I could get used to it,” she admitted, smiling, as she took his hand and he led her away from the table a couple of feet. He turned to her then, pulling the woman he loved into his arms as Gladys Knight began to sing, ‘You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.’

[(You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me](https://youtu.be/1lGrShe7t7c))

_I've had my share of life's ups and downs_  
But fate's been kind, the downs have been few  
I guess you could say that I've been lucky  
Well, I guess you could say that it's all because of you

_If anyone should ever write my life story_  
For whatever reason there might be  
Oh, you'll be there between each line of pain and glory  
Cause you're the best thing that ever happened to me  
Ah, you're the best thing that ever happened to me

_Oh, there have been times when times were hard_  
But always somehow I made it, I made it through  
Cause for every moment that I've spent hurting  
There was a moment that I spent, ah, just loving you

The lovers swayed gently to the slow music, their bodies moving as one, liquid and graceful. Spike held her right hand in his, close against his chest, while his left roamed gently up and down the soft, bare skin along her spine, making her body tingle beneath his touch.

They didn’t speak, just letting the song and their bodies do the talking for them, getting lost in both, in each other. They’d had so many ‘dances’ over the years, dances of life and death, of Slayer and vampire, of ally and protector, of lustful lovers, and now, she had to admit, that their dance had evolved yet again into even more than lovers. There was a bond, a trust, a deep understanding borne from shared experience. They could depend on each other to be there, to have each other’s backs, to provide a buttress against whatever challenges leapt into their paths.

In short, it had evolved into love, on both sides.

Buffy felt the walls around her heart begin to crack and crumble, his arms around her an anchor for her to hold on to, knowing that she’d be safe here. Safe to tell him, safe to say the words.

She looked up and their eyes met and held. She opened her mouth, the words ready to tumble out, when his lips closed over hers, swallowing them in a soft moan.

“Thank you, Buffy,” Spike whispered against her lips when the kiss broke.

“For what?” she wondered, pulling back to look into his beautiful blue eyes.

“For being the best thing that ever happened to me,” he professed, before kissing her again, deeply, ardently.

As the kiss broke, Spike slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a small, black velvet box. Releasing Buffy, he took a half a step back and held the box up on the palm of his hand for her to see.

Buffy’s brows knit as she looked from the box to his eyes and back again. “For me? What is it?”

“Probably not an elephant in a pink tutu and tap shoes,” he pointed out, smirking.

Buffy rolled her eyes but smiled.

“Open it and see,” he suggested, his expression intent again.

Buffy held her breath as she took the small box and flipped the lid open. Inside was a delicate necklace with a golden, infinity pendant. It was in the shape of a figure eight, a symbol of eternal, unbreakable love and unbounded strength. In the loop on one end of the ‘8’ was a black diamond, dark and sparkling in a delicate setting, in the other loop was a brilliant white diamond, glittering bright in the candlelight. Between the two, on the front, downward slant of the ‘8’ were more, smaller black diamonds inset into the gold.

 

“Oh, Spike … it’s beautiful!” Buffy exclaimed, touching a finger down gently on the gleaming jewels.

She looked back up at him then, her gaze softening. “But how … you gave me the money,” she wondered.

“Not polite t’ ask questions like that, Slayer,” he rebuked her lightly.

“Spiiike?” she drawled out suspiciously.

Spike sighed. “Might’ve held back one or two little baubles from the jewel heists,” he admitted. “Call it a reward.”

Buffy rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but smile, looking back down at the necklace.

“It’s us … you and me,” Spike explained. “The darkness and the light, together for infinity. It’s my promise, pet, till the end of the world – and beyond.”

Buffy’s mouth dropped open, and she looked back up at him. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, touched as much by the sentiment as the jewels themselves.

“You’re my light, Buffy. I’m forever fighting the darkness, but you’re my sun, you drive it back. You make me less of a monster, more of a man,” Spike told her solemnly, his eyes shimmering with emotion.

Buffy shook her head, her gaze still locked with his. “It’s you who is my light, Spike. You push back the darkness in my soul, you pulled me out of the hell my friends dropped me into. You showed me that we can find happiness here, and even a little slice of heaven.” 

Buffy pulled the necklace from the box and held it up for him, silently asking him to put it on her. When he took it from her hands, she turned around and lifted her short hair up off her neck for him. His fingers grazed her skin as he encircled her neck with the delicate chain and deftly snapped it together at the back.

Buffy turned back around, her eyes finding his. “How does it look?”

“You make it radiant, Buffy, just like you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of their date to come. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are utterly superb -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally incredible! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks and rolls and twists and shouts!


	35. Could it Be I'm in Love?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their date continues and turns steamy.

 

* * *

Seated at the table again after giving her the infinity necklace, the embodiment of his promise to her, Spike rang a small bell that Buffy hadn’t even noticed next to his place setting.

Buffy turned around in time to see a small demon emerge from behind a screen in the furthest corner of the cavern. He had teal skin, and long, deep green hair, that seemed to be made of seaweed.  As he came closer, she saw that he had bright, aquamarine eyes that shimmered like sunlight glinting through crystal-blue water, and two short horns protruding from his forehead that might’ve been white coral. He couldn’t have been more than four feet tall, and was dressed in a handsome black tux, complete with a bowtie and tails.

He bowed perfunctorily when he reached them, then pulled Buffy’s folded napkin from its place on the table and settled it neatly onto her lap. Buffy looked at Spike, her eyes wide, her lips pressed together to suppress a grin. The little demon did the same with Spike’s napkin, then turned on his heel and disappeared behind the screen again.

Before Buffy could ask any questions, the fellow was back with two plates of Caesar salad, which he placed gently down atop the larger plate already on the table in front of each of them.

“Cheese?” he offered Buffy, holding out a small block of parmesan and a cheese grater.

“Ummm ... sure … I mean, yes, please,” she replied, sitting back in her chair, watching.

The little demon grated cheese atop her salad, and grated, and grated, and kept grating.

“I think yer supposed t’ say ‘when’, pet,” Spike told her with a small smile.

“Oh! When!” Buffy exclaimed. “Thanks.”

The demon then turned to Spike, who accepted the offer of cheese, but stopped him before the lettuce was completely consumed by it.

Their small waiter then offered salt and pepper, both also freshly ground atop the salad, until both diners said ‘when’. He then bowed again, and retreated behind the screen, out of sight.

“I didn’t know you had a manservant,” Buffy teased in a low voice.

Spike smirked. “Name’s Tobias. He’s a headwaiter at The Venomous Unicorn, actually. Just moonlightin’ for me tonight.”

“The Venomous Unicorn?” Buffy questioned, widening her eyes.

“Very exclusive restaurant near the coast – demons only, very posh,” Spike explained.

“They don’t actually serve unicorn there, do they?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “No such thing, pet.”

Buffy quirked a brow at him. “You never know,” she pointed out. “Do you know every demon joint in California?”

“P-lease!” he scoffed. “I know every demon joint from Prudhoe Bay to Tierra del Fuego.”

“Oh, pardon me,” Buffy laughed. “Didn’t mean to insult your demon bar acumen.”

Spike sniffed. “Apology accepted, just don’t let it happen again.”

“You should start a Zagat’s-type guide for demon bars. You’d make a million,” Buffy suggested, her eyes glittering with humor.

“Got all the treasure I need right here, luv … right _here_ ,” he clarified, lifting his hand to touch her face gently.

Buffy bit her lip and looked down coquettishly, a small blush rising up her neck to color her face. “Who knew you were so sweet?” she asked, covering his hand with hers.

“Well-guarded secret, that is,” Spike scoffed. “Might have t’ kill ya now,” he teased, pulling his hand away.

Buffy laughed and held up three fingers in a pledge. “What happens in the crypt, stays in the crypt, remember?”

Spike pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and tilted his head in agreement. Oh, the things he had planned for tonight in the crypt. He had to adjust the napkin over his lap just thinking about it.

“He looks a little familiar. Have I met him before?” she wondered, changing subject as she glanced back in the direction the demon had gone.

“Don’t think so. Met his second cousin, though, Ariel,” he reminded her.

“Oh! The soap demon,” Buffy confirmed. “The eyes, that’s what it is. They have the same eyes.”

Spike nodded agreement, and then straightened the napkin in his lap again, waiting.

Buffy looked down at her pile of cheese-topped lettuce, considering all the various utensils around her plate, and then back at Spike. “Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked him, waiting to see which fork he used.

“Guests first, luv,” he advised her gallantly.

“Oh … umm… right,” she muttered, once again considering the different forks around her plate, chewing her bottom lip in contemplation.

Spike watched her, amused and utterly charmed. “Something wrong, pet?” he prompted, quirking a brow at her. “Too much cheese?”

Buffy looked up, pulled from her deliberations. “Oh! No … you can never have too much cheese,” she assured him, deciding to just go for it.

She reached for the fork above the plate, and Spike shook his head negatively, so she pulled her hand back quickly. She then went for the one next to her plate, which drew another negative shake of Spike’s head. She rolled her eyes and picked up the last fork on the table.

“A girl could starve figuring out what fork to use,” she muttered dourly before digging into the cheese … err, the salad.

Spike laughed and picked up his own salad fork and began to eat with her. “When faced with a bevy of flatware, remember to work from the outside in,” he advised her. “The one above the plate’s for dessert.”

“Well, it’s good to know there will be dessert,” she offered, brightening.

“I love you, Buffy,” he announced suddenly and naturally. “You’re bloody adorable, in a deadly sort o’ way.”

The words formed in her mind again and she thought they were willing to be voiced, but her mouth was full of cheesy salad. Although she didn’t think Spike would care too much if she talked with her mouth full, she thought it would ruin the effect, so she once again put the words back in their gilded cage.

“Good?” he asked, watching her.

Buffy nodded, swallowing. “Very cheesy.”

Spike laughed. “Reckon you’ll know when to say ‘when’ next time, pet.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Before long, Tobias returned to remove the salad plates, refill their champagne glasses, and then serve the main course: Roasted lamb chops with herby new potatoes, and roasted leeks with bacon.

Buffy looked at the small chops suspiciously. “What is it?” she asked, touching it with what she now knew was her dinner fork. “It’s not demon, is it?”

Spike laughed, amused. “Lamb chops, pet.”

Buffy’s brows knit together. “They’re really small,” she observed, cutting a tender piece off one.

“Wouldn’t be lamb if they were big, be mutton,” he told her, also cutting and taking a bite of the meat.

“I thought lambs grew into sheep, not muttons,” Buffy observed, lifting the tidbit to her mouth. Her eyes went wide as she tasted the rich, tender, savory meat, and she moaned in pleasure.

“That’s so good!” she exclaimed before Spike could explain mutton to her. “How have I not had this before?” she wondered, looking at Spike.

“Too busy annihilating your taste buds with Doublemeat Medleys, I reckon,” Spike replied, smiling at her enthusiasm for his menu.

“Even the green stuff is good,” she continued, taking a bite of the leeks. “Dawn should use this in her smoothies instead of grass.”

Spike chuckled, his eyes glinting with joy as he watched her. She was so guileless, so pure, and vibrant – sunbeams and seashells and summer days wrapped in raw silk. She filled in the cracks of his heart with brilliance when she smiled, making him want nothing more than to be the man she thought he was.

“Oh, my God, Spike. I love this,” she gushed as she ate. “This is the best meal I’ve had, possibly ever!”

Buffy stopped her fork halfway to her mouth and looked up at him then. “And the best company, too,” she added, her tone soft and serious.

Spike’s eyes sparkled back at her and he reached out and took her free hand in his, squeezing gently. “Me too, Buffy. Ever.”

 

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 

 “I figured someone had highjacked yer body that time – didn’t know it was another Slayer. What she said makes a bit more sense, knowing that.

“But Joyce and Rupert doing the deed on the hood of a police car? Yer just making stuff up now, Slayer,” Spike insisted as they finished the dessert: double death by chocolate molten lava cake.

Buffy shook her head, laughing as she swallowed the last bite. “I swear on the god of chocolate. They did it! Twice! My mom described Giles as a ‘stevedore’! Oh, my God, I thought my brain would explode when I found out!” Buffy vowed, still laughing as she set her fork down.

“Didn’t know Rupert had it in ‘im. Actually got shagged this decade.” Spike shook his head in disbelief. “Sorry I missed that,” he admitted, still chuckling.

“Oh no you’re not. It was _horrible_ ,” she assured him. “When _I’m_ the most responsible person in town, you know the world is doomed!” she laughed.

Buffy turned serious then, a faraway look in her eyes. “Mom really liked you, ya know?”

“I could tell by the way she hit me with that axe,” he replied, smirking at the memory.

Buffy smiled. “You never hurt her … you could’ve.”

Spike shook his head. “Joyce was a good lady. Put those little marshmallows in my hot chocolate. Treated me nice.”

“Unlike me,” Buffy admitted, looking down.

“Buffy,” Spike cajoled, taking her hand in his. “We both made mistakes, yeah? We did what we were made to do, followed our callings. It’s behind us, it’s the past. Only thing that matters is now. And right now, I’d love t’ dance with you.”

“You told me once that’s all we’ve ever done.”

“I remember,” Spike assured her softly. “But right now I was thinking something a little more literal.”

Buffy smiled and nodded. “I’d love that.”

Spike released her hand and stood up, this time not having to use vampire speed to help her with her chair, she waited for him. Buffy took his proffered hand, rising and following him to the small ‘dance floor’ as the soft music continued to play.

Spike turned and took her in his arms again, so gracefully and gently that it made Buffy wonder how someone so powerful, and capable of such violence, could even manage it. Another of the dichotomies that was Spike. Fierce and tender. Primal and refined. Snarky and sweet. Dangerous and protective. Sarcastic and gracious. 

Buffy smiled to herself as she moved with him, realizing that she loved all those contradictions because she had so many of them herself. She was what she needed to be depending on the circumstances, but with Spike she could just be what she was, she didn’t have to wear those masks, he wouldn’t take jabs at her true heart, even if it was silly or naïve, wicked or wanton. He would understand. He would love her anyway.

( [ The Four Tops - I Believe in You And Me)](https://youtu.be/GXsIwM2Bymo%C2%A0)

_I believe in you and me_   
_I believe that we will be_   
_In love eternally_   
_As far as I can see_   
_You will always be_   
_The one for me_   
_Oh, yes you will_

_I believe in dreams again_   
_I believe that love will never end_   
_And like the river finds the sea_   
_I was lost now I'm free_   
_I believe in you and me_

Buffy leaned into him, their bodies again melding into one with the slow music, the words flowing over them as if reading their minds.

_I will never leave your side_   
_I will never hurt your pride_   
_When all the chips are down_   
_I will always be around_   
_Just to be right there where you are, my love_   
_Oh, I love you girl_

_I will never leave you out_   
_I will always let you in_   
_To places no one's ever been_   
_Deep inside can't you see_   
_I believe in you and me_

Buffy felt tears prickle her eyes and she closed them tight, not wanting anything to spoil this moment. Spike had opened up to her, he’d let her in to places she was sure no one else had ever been, into the deepest recesses of his battered soul. She knew that hadn’t been easy for him, but he’d trusted her to understand, to catch him, to not let him crash on the rocks.  It was time for her to make good on that, to catch him, to let him in fully.

_Maybe I'm a fool_   
_To feel the way I do_   
_But I would play the fool forever_   
_Just to be with you forever_

_I believe in miracles_   
_Love's a miracle_   
_And, baby, you're a dream come true_   
_I was lost, now I'm free_   
_I believe in you and me_   
_I was lost now I'm free, girl_   
_I believe in you and me_

 

As the song came to an end, Buffy blinked back her emotions, looking up to meet his eyes. “Spike, I…” she began but was interrupted by someone clearing their throat behind her.

She spun from Spike’s embrace, startled, to find their waiter standing at attention, hands clasped behind his back, waiting patiently. She’d totally forgotten he was there.

“If that will be all, sir, I shall take my leave,” Tobias announced formally.

Spike nodded. “Was perfect, Alfred. Much obliged,” he acknowledged.

“It’s Tobias, sir,” the small demon corrected stoically. He then bowed smartly and turned on his heel, heading for the ladder, the tails of his tux fluttering behind him. After reaching the crypt above, their waiter closed the trapdoor above them, leaving them alone with the flickering candles and soft music.

As soon as the door closed, Buffy let out the burbling laugh she’d been holding in. “I guess he’s not a Batman fan,” she observed, her glittering green eyes looking up at Spike.

Spike chuckled. “No accountin’ fer taste, I reckon,” he agreed with a shrug.

Spike gently pulled her back around to face him fully. “Were you saying something ‘fore Alfred interrupted?”

Buffy smiled shyly and nodded. “I was …” she hesitated, then cleared her throat. “I was just thinking how good that suit would look hanging on that chair over there.”

Spike arched a brow at her. “Thought you liked how I looked in it.”

“I do, but I like how you look _out of it_ even better,” she admitted, with a suggestive smile.

Buffy reached up and gently pulled the knot of his tie loose, then began to unbutton his shirt. Spike stood still, allowing her to undress him. When her fingers grazed his skin, a breath of warm fire billowed over his body, heating him with each gentle touch. She unfastened his belt and the button at the top of his trousers, then slowly pulled the tail of his shirt from them.

With his shirt open and tails out, she ran her hands up from his waist to his shoulders, then let them hook beneath his dress jacket and slide it off his shoulders. She caught it deftly in one hand before it hit the floor behind him. Buffy folded it neatly and laid it across the back of his chair before returning to her task. Lifting each of his wrists, she unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and again ran her hands up his torso, beneath the fabric. With her hands resting on his pectorals, she paused and gazed up into his eyes for a long, silent moment.

“I really do like you in blue,” she revealed. “It makes your eyes shine.”

Spike shook his head. “You do that, pet, not the shirt.”

Buffy bit her bottom lip shyly, then finished what she’d started, sliding her hands down his arms to remove his shirt. As with his jacket, she folded it neatly and laid it over the back of the chair before returning to him.

Spike stood, waiting, watching her move, listening to her heartbeat, drowning in her warmth, her scent, the very essence of her. There was no hurry, no frantic rush to have her, and she had read his mind, taking her time with a slow, gentle seduction.

Buffy returned, but instead of continuing with his trousers, she ran her hands slowly over his shoulders, chest, and torso, taking in every curve of muscle and rise of his body beneath her fingers. She traced the lingering scar on his lower right abdomen, the new skin there still tinged with pink in contrast to the marblesque radiance of the rest of his body.

“Does it still hurt very much?” she wondered, looking up to meet his eyes.

Spike shook his head. “Not as long as you’re touching me,” he replied, pressing his hand over hers and holding it against the most tender spot. “All I can feel is heaven.”

Buffy gave him a loving smile, pulling her hand away slowly, and touched a soft kiss to the spot he had covered.

It was all Spike could do to keep from pulling her to him then, to ravish her sweet lips with a fervid kiss, but this is what he’d wanted for tonight, and she’d seemed to know that. He didn’t want to ruin it now.

Buffy then turned her attention to his slacks. The belt hung loose, the ends dangling against his groin, the button of his waistband undone from earlier. She slowly slid the nylon zipper down, being sure to pull it out away from his body at the same time, since clearly it was barely containing his burgeoning need.

As soon as she released the zipper, his slacks slipped off his slender hips, the weight of the belt pulling them to the earth. It was only then that she realized she hadn’t removed his shoes, but Spike took care of it with a couple of adept moves, toeing them off within the puddle of blue fabric.

Buffy smiled up at him, acknowledging the help, as she knelt down before him. She pulled shoes and slacks free as he took one step back to stand bare and exposed before her in the soft glow of the flickering candles.

Buffy carefully folded the slacks and placed them on the chair with his other clothes, tucking the shoes on the floor beneath, before turning back to face him again. No matter how often she saw him like this, it never failed to take her breath away.

“You’re beautiful,” she murmured, returning to him. She trailed her fingers over his chest, then down and around one hip, walking in a slow circle around him. She let her fingers travel over his strong back, tracing the lines of muscle that stood out like a sculpture, smooth and powerful.

“Your ass is perfect,” she observed dreamily, using the flat of her palm to gently caress the tight, round globes. 

Buffy continued her slow tour, coming back around to the front, completing her circle. She then allowed her fingers to tickle over his six-pack abs, touching each bulging muscle with a different finger, as if playing a keyboard.

“Anything else strike yer fancy?” Spike wondered, watching her intently, using all his considerable strength to keep from reaching out and ripping her dress off with one vicious jerk.

Buffy smiled and wrapped her hand around his thick, hard column of steely flesh. “Like this, maybe?” she replied, tightening her grip.

Spike’s eyes fluttered closed and the unneeded breath he’d been inhaling caught in his throat.

“You could say I’m pretty fond of it,” Buffy admitted, stroking slowly up and down the long length. “I’d say you were the model for Michelangelo, except for this part,” she grinned up at him. “Or maybe they just didn’t have enough marble in Italy to do it justice.”

Spike chuckled, opening his eyes and finding hers looking up at him. “Glad you like it, pet. I can assure you, he’s right fond of you, too.”

Buffy laughed, releasing her grip. “Why do guys do that? Refer to their dicks as a separate person?”

Spike snorted. “Cos it has a bloody mind of its own, is why. Doesn’t listen to a bit o’ reason, grows and shrinks without consultin’ its owner, sucks the blood from your brain so you can’t even think straight. Like having a little alien parasite attached to ya, down there doing as it pleases, sucking up your blood, leadin’ you around like a bloody puppet.”

Buffy’s peal of amused laughter sounded like sweet bells to Spike’s ear. “That sounds kind of painful,” she remarked, still laughing.

Spike snorted again. “Not exactly,” he clarified. “More like rapturous bliss, it is, at least when it gets its way. Worth the other small annoyances, I reckon.”

Buffy was still smiling as she bent over and touched a soft kiss to the very tip of Spike’s ‘alien parasite’. “Well, I, for one, think he’s a really cute little alien. Does he have a name?”

“Been known t’ call him a daft bugger, but, no, haven’t gone quite that far,” Spike admitted.

“Maybe his name is Merlin, cos he’s magical,” Buffy suggested. Her face was starting to hurt from grinning, but she couldn’t stop.

Spike quirked a brow, considering. “Sounds like a poofter,” he declined.

“The Rock?” she suggested.

“Think that name’s taken, pet.”

“Hercules? Loverboy? Conan the Barbarian? Atlas? Thor’s Hammer?” Buffy suggested, still laughing.

Spike pulled her against him and kissed her fiercely, drowning her laughter and turning it into a moan of pleasure. His tongue pressed between her sweet lips, tasting her amusement and infectious laughter, drowning in the feel of her, in the utter joy of her.

When he finally released her, Buffy gasped for air, breathless and panting, but still smiling.

“How about ‘Yours’?” Spike suggested. “All yours.”

Buffy bit her bottom lip and nodded. “I like the sound of that.”

Spike touched another soft kiss to her lips, murmuring, “Me too.”

His hands slid up her arms, slowly, gently, above her elbows, skimming lightly across her strong biceps and round deltoids, to her bare shoulders. He let his fingers linger there, tracing random designs of fire onto the skin covering her collarbones. He paused a moment, touching the infinity necklace. No matter what she said, it was she who was the bright, sparkling diamond. He would always be the darkness, but he had hope that, with her as his beacon, someday he could be the man she needed.

Moving again, his fingertips danced over her skin, following the line of the halter straps from her neck down to the curve of her breasts, dipping between them with the cut of the top, then back up the other side.

“So beautiful, Buffy,” he whispered as she stood shivering with pleasure in front of him.

God, she wanted him. Badly. She wished he would rip the dress from her body, throw her down and take her in a fit of lust and ravenous hunger, but she knew that was not what he had in mind tonight. The formal invitation, the roses, the fancy dinner, the soft music, the dancing. No, that was not what this night would be. It would be different, yet another dance for them to experience, soft and loving and tender.

“You cold, pet?” Spike asked, his fingers still tracing the edge of her dress with a velvet touch.

“No,” Buffy managed in a raspy whisper.

Spike smiled, looking up from his task to meet her eyes. “Do I make you shiver?” he wondered, biting his lip in anticipation of her answer.

“To my bones.”

“Never shivered in fear o’ me,” he observed, his fingers still delicate, now traveling slowly up her neck, following her blood which was pounding like a drum just below the surface.

“No,” Buffy agreed.

“You make me shiver, too,” Spike admitted. “In desire of your body, your soul, your … heart.”

Buffy swallowed hard beneath his fingers, which were tracing back down her throat now.

“You have them,” she replied honestly, her voice a low rasp beneath his touch.

Spike stopped moving then, his head tilting, gazing into her eyes. “Do I?”

Buffy nodded, small, earnest bobs of her head. “You do.”

Spike’s fingers deftly unhooked the snap at the back of Buffy’s neck, letting the straps of her dress slide down her skin, revealing her bare breasts. Her nipples were hard pebbles of desire. Gooseflesh rippled over her body, tingling her skin deliciously. The shivers of her desire were burgeoning inside her, threatening to split her into slivers of sweet, silver lightning.   

Spike leaned down and kissed each nipple in turn, slowly drawing each bud past his wet lips. He teased each with his tongue until Buffy had to grasp his shoulders for support, her knees having turned to water. His fingers traced more tracks of fire over the round curves of her breasts as she clung to him, her eyes closed, utterly lost in the pleasure of his touch.

“Such pure passion,” Spike whispered against her, his breath cool against her damp areola.  “Never anyone like you, Buffy.”

Spike slipped his fingers beneath the waist of the dress and pressed it the rest of the way down her body. It slid easily over the luscious curve of her hips and down her legs, his hands following the entire way.

Buffy took a steadying breath and stepped free of the fabric, then watched as Spike slowly and carefully laid it over his clothes on the back of the chair. Spike returned to her, moving like a tiger stalking its prey, silent and sure, pure powerful grace. His fingers began to trace the red lace of her thong, from her hip down into the crack of her ass, lingering there, teasing her tight rosebud, before lifting back up and continuing around her.

He stopped directly in front of her, his tickling touch lingering on her lower stomach, just above the soft lace. Her skin prickled, and more shivers ran through her, quivering the skin beneath his fingers.

“Love how your body answers mine,” Spike whispered, sliding his finger down over the lacy, red fabric, pressing gently between her thighs. “So wet, you are.”

He demonstrated by bringing his finger up to her lips, touching the dampness there against them. Buffy opened her mouth and pulled his finger inside seductively. The taste of her juices unmistakable on his skin as she licked and sucked her own desire from his cool flesh.

He slowly pulled his finger from her luscious lips, sliding it back down her body, between her breasts, over her quivering stomach, and back between her shapely thighs. He rubbed the wet fabric against her clit, gently teasing her, the slickness gliding over her bundle of nerves silkily.

“Cum for me, Buffy. Let me feel your fire,” he begged, circling her clit with the damp fabric between them. Spike touched his lips to one breast, biting down gently with his teeth on the hard pebble. After a moment, he sucked her sensitive skin between his lips and flicked his tongue against the nub mercilessly.

Buffy’s eyes fluttered closed and her legs quivered under her, threatening to give way. Bolts of pleasure shot through her, pulsing like a white-hot fire in her core, ready to explode. She suddenly forgot how to breathe, unable to inhale, as her body shuddered in the pleasure of Spike’s touch. She felt like she was floating there, then falling, then rising again, higher and higher, up to the top of the world.

How high could he take her? Higher. Always higher.

How deep could she fall into the sea of rapture? Miles and miles.

Spike’s fingers slipped beneath the fabric of her panties, touching her hot, yearning nubbin directly, then circling her throbbing opening. Buffy’s body bucked against him, yearning for more. He slipped a finger inside her hot channel, feeling her body throb and pulse around him, but only for a moment. Pulling out, Spike slid his soaked fingers along her dewy petals, back to her clit, circling gently, teasing, lifting, arousing, tantalizing her to the very fringe of lunacy.

Buffy’s heart raced, jumping and lurching in her chest. Her blood boiled in her veins, sparkling with brilliant fires that spread out from her core to consume her. A thin sheen of perspiration dotted her flushed skin from the heat Spike was pouring over her. Quivers of pleasure danced down her legs and up her body, making her knees watery and her breath shallow and raspy. Her yes fluttered closed, lost in his touch, lost in the pleasure sweeping through her, lost in the sweet scents of candles and roses, lost in love.

Feeling her hovering on the precipice, Spike pressed down hard on her clit, as if pressing the button that would end the world, ignite her like a missile, send her rocketing into heaven.

And she did.

Her body arched and bowed with the rapture Spike was pouring over her, and then the world fell away from beneath her. Buffy’s knees gave way. The electrical shocks of quivering pleasure exploded from her center and burned through every nerve ending, every muscle, every fiber of her being, severing them from her control. Buffy heard someone screaming but it seemed far away, unable to comprehend that it was her own voice.  The universe rocketed past, engulfing her in the euphoria of a blinding, astral freefall. She surrendered completely to the ecstasy, letting it rain down on her like a monsoon, coating her entire being in bliss.

When Buffy came back to herself, she was lying on her back on the bed, Spike next to her, propped up on one elbow, his other hand tracing the quivers that continued to shiver across her abdomen.

He looked up to her eyes, feeling her gaze upon him, and smiled tenderly. “Love watching you cum, Buffy. Could spend eternity just watching that, hearing you lose yourself, feeling your body surrender to the ecstasy, knowing I gave that to you.”

Buffy reached out and touched his face, caressing his smooth skin with the back of her hand. “Sort of leaves you a little short, though, doesn’t it?”

Spike shook his head slowly. “Don’t mind. All I ever want is you to be happy. That’s all I ever need.”

“And all I want is for you to be happy,” Buffy replied sincerely. “Let’s be happy together, Spike. Make love to me.”

Spike’s gaze softened as he rolled atop her, her body warm and soft beneath his. Her arms went around his neck, and his arms slid beneath her, so his fingers could tangle in her soft, golden tresses. He kissed her then, deeply, gently, sensuously, letting the moment linger on, languorous and sweet. Their tongues danced, tasting, tempting, tantalizing the other, getting lost in the feeling, lost in each other.

The kiss parted, slowly, gently, their need for each other expanding, blooming into leaping flames of desire. Spike slid down her body, touching cool kisses against her heated skin. Her neck, her collarbone, her breasts, her trembling stomach, stopping only when he reached the lace of her red thong. He sat back onto his heels between her thighs, breathing in the scent of her, growing harder and hungrier by the moment.

Buffy lifted her hips as he slipped his fingers beneath the lacy straps, and he slid them slowly down her thighs. She lifted her legs up in front of him and Spike removed the small bit of damp fabric completely, stretching it over her stiletto heels, and dropping the bit of wet lace on the floor next to the bed.

Buffy bent her knees and pressed both feet against his chest in invitation for him to finish the process of disrobing her. Her stilettos dug lightly into his pectorals as he unhooked the sparkling straps one by one, and tossed the sandals onto the floor, as well.

Spike moved back up her body then, her legs slipping down his sides to wrap around his hips. Buffy reached between them and guided his hardness to her slick opening as his hips lined up with hers. Spike stopped moving when his cock pressed against her heat tight enough to not move, but not quite hard enough to penetrate her slick channel.

Holding himself up on strong arms above her, he gazed into the heaven of her green eyes, ready to fall into them, to drown in their depths. Buffy, too, felt ready to fall, fall into the intense blue love that shone down on her like shimmering pools of desire.

She wrapped her arms gently around his neck, pulling his mouth down to hers. In the instant before his lips touched hers, she whispered, “I love you, Spike.”

Spike froze, their lips barely touching. Nothing moved between them except the beating of Buffy’s heart. He stayed frozen there for two strong beats, savoring the words, letting them echo in his mind, and seep into his damaged soul.

Then, on the third beat of her heart, he whispered, “I know.”

His lips covered hers then, capturing them in a gentle, sensuous kiss as he pressed his hardness into her slick desire. Their bodies moved together in a slow, sumptuous dance. Pressing together and pulling apart, teeth nipping lightly against lips, her warmth sliding smoothly against his coolness.

And still the music played, a slow rhythm to match theirs. Even though she’d tried before, when he’d been so badly injured, it had never been like this before between them. Tender. Loving. Gentle.  But the yearning was no less intense.  The pleasure no less rapturous. The hunger no less ravenous.

 

 [(Minnie Riperton- Could it Be I’m in Love?)](https://youtu.be/w6Sf1LKCpjM)

 

_You move me... I'm burning_   
_Such passion I'm yearning_   
_One thought keeps returning_   
_Could it be... I'm in love?_

“Feel so good, Buffy,” Spike murmured against her lips, dropping down onto his elbows above her and grinding this pubic bone against her clit in a slow, deliberate motion. He lifted his head to gaze down into her eyes, watching them flutter with pleasure each time he ground against her.

“Oh, Spike, baby … God, don’t stop,” she moaned, allowing her fingers to dance down along his spine, feeling every swell and wave of muscle beneath her hands as he moved.

_You touch a place in me that feels so divine_   
_I can't recall the pain that once was mine_   
_Since we kissed I am not the same_   
_I've blossomed in desire_   
_Could it be... I'm in love?_

 

Unfortunately, her words had the opposite effect. Spike stopped dead, stunned into immobility.

Buffy opened her eyes then, looking up at him curiously. “Are you okay?” she asked, immediately concerned that he’d done something to reinjure himself.   

Spike shook his head dazedly. “ _’Baby’_?” he repeated dreamily.

Buffy smiled up at him, cupping his cheek in her palm. “I tell you ‘I love you’ and you say, ‘I know,’, but calling you ‘baby’ gets your attention?”

“You’ve never …” Spike shook his head, finding himself falling more in love with her with each passing moment.

Buffy sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, suddenly worried. “Is it okay? I mean, I won’t if…”

Spike smothered her words with an ardent kiss, dropping his body against hers fully, wanting to feel every inch of her warmth pressed against him. He wanted to inhale her, to melt into her, to blur into nothingness and seep into her soul. He couldn’t get close enough to her, couldn’t touch enough of her warmth, couldn’t pour enough of himself over her.

“I’ll be your baby till the end of time,” Spike murmured against her lips, then touched soft kisses against each of her eyelids.

“Always your baby,” he whispered, wrapping his arms beneath her and holding her tight, resting his head next to hers on the pillow, just basking in the emotions she’d stirred inside him and in the feel of her body beneath him.

_Falling. I'm flying_   
_I'm laughing now I'm crying_   
_I'm born but it's like dying_   
_Could it be... I'm in love?_

After a time, their bodies began to move as one, slowly, sensuously. They started building the pleasure again, lifting each other up. Higher and higher they danced, sparking rapture deep in their hearts.

Spike released his tight hold on her, taking his weight back onto his elbows above her, resuming the slow grind of his hips against her. His pubic bone pressed blissfully against her clit, sending sparks of electricity cascading out in all directions, drawing renewed murmurs of ‘baby’ from her lips. His cock slipped in and out of her sweet, hot channel, and they began again to float in the deep river of love that they’d now both leapt into.

Buffy’s body began to tremble beneath him, her hands slipping down to the globes of his perfect ass. The muscles beneath her palms grew hard with each press against her, then relaxed a moment, then hard again. The feel of his body, so powerful and resplendent atop her, fueled her passion, stoking the fires within.

_I tremble... it's thrilling_  
_It scares me but I'm willing_  
 _It drains me but it's filling_  
 _Could it be... I'm in love?_

“Spike, baby, need you,” Buffy breathed, her hands stroking up and down his back.

“Tell me… again,” he begged in a deep, intense rumble.

“Love you,” Buffy replied breathlessly. “I love you.”

Spike’s heart seemed to come alive for a moment, swelling and clenching in his chest. Despite his apparent nonchalance at her words earlier, he couldn’t continue to pretend he didn’t feel them as they settled deep in inside his own chest. “I love you, Buffy … so bloody much.”

“Spike … God … Need you to cum inside me. Need to feel you deep inside me. Please, baby … cum in me.”

Spike moaned in pleasure, her words fanning the flames of his desire. Rising up onto his hands above her, his eyes locked with hers, he changed rhythms again. He thrust into her deep and hard, but not with the violence that was their norm. This was deliberate and unhurried, not frantic and fevered. He could feel her channel constrict around his cock, feel her heartbeat reverberate around his hard, sensitive flesh. Her supple walls opened for him with each thrust, closing around his steely column as he buried his length deep inside her core.

“So good, Buffy … my sweet Slayer. Heaven, you are … bloody heaven – my heaven,” he rasped, letting the feel of her consume him with an undeniable, primal need to fill her, to mark her as his once again.

Buffy’s hips found his rhythm and matched it, rising up to meet him with each powerful thrust. Gasps and moans of pleasure were driven from her throat, rising directly from her core where his cock plunged into her, hard and deep.

She could feel the rising rapture building inside her like a tsunami, ready to wash her away with its powerful waves of bliss.

“Harder … just a little … more,” she begged, digging her heels into his ass to propel him just a smidge past sweetness into ferventness.

Spike willingly obliged her, drawing back and thrusting into her powerfully, time and time again. He watched her face contort into rapture as her body began to quake beneath him. Her eyes would flash open and meet his before fluttering closed again when another wave of intense pleasure hit her as he thrust forward, washing over her, pulling her under the surface of bliss.  

“Cum, my baby … cum for me. Jesus, Buffy … love t’ feel you cum,” he begged, plunging into her with passion fueled by love and a bottomless yearning to join her in heaven.

“Yes, yes, yes … Spike! Cumming! Fuck! … God … yesssss!” she gasped and hissed, her hips jerking against him, her channel tightening like a vise around his pounding cock, her hands clinging desperately to his shoulders, her toes curling with the intensity of her burgeoning orgasm.

“Buffy … fu—” was all he could utter before his leonine roar filled the chamber, his control lost along with hers. With two final, hard thrusts, his cold seed spilled into her slick, welcoming channel in white-hot bursts of rapture, surging from his body urgently, eager to fill her, to join her in heaven.

Her slick walls spasmed around his column in wild abandon, milking him, urging every drop of sweet spunk from his balls. Buffy’s body arched and quivered in pleasure beneath him, lost in waves of golden bliss that washed over her.

Spike gave it all eagerly, feeling himself being swept away with her, drowned in the glowing fire of their combined passion; drowned in her, in sunshine and moonbeams and eternal love.

 

_It’s madness…I know it_

_I love it, do I show it?_

_It’s too late now, I glow it_

_Could it be I’m in love?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She said it! Whooo! More of their date to come. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are utterly remarkable -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally stunning! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks and rolls and twists and shouts!


	36. Uhh, Spike?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their night takes a turn from whispers to screams. 
> 
> Bonus points for finding the small ‘crossover’ with ‘The Dresden Files’ in this chapter. Tell me if you spot it!

 

* * *

 

**Later that night.**

Buffy stretched languidly, arching her back and lifting her arms overhead, pressing her body against Spike as she woke from a strange, but oddly happy dream some time later.

“Sleep well, pet?” Spike asked, trailing the back of his fingers down her side from under her arm to her hip as she stretched like a contented feline.

Buffy moaned a dreamy affirmative, blinking her eyes open to look at him. He lay on his side on the bed next to her, his head propped up in one hand, watching her.

“I dreamed aliens abducted us and took us far away to another Earth,” she recounted sleepily, turning on her side to face him like a mirror. “It looked just like this one, except the sun was different, and it wouldn’t turn you into dust motes. There were humans and demons living there in peace; somehow they’d found a way to get along,” she continued.

“Did they? Where did that leave you hero-types, then?” he wondered.

Buffy smiled. “ _We_ hero-types,” she explained, emphasizing the ‘we’, “were brought in to be the law, like in those old westerns. Even though everyone mostly got along, there were still bad people, and bad demons. We were like … Marshall Dillon and Festus, keeping the peace in Dodge City.”

Spike quirked a brow at her. “You’re Festus,” he insisted.

Buffy laughed, and leaned forward, touching a soft kiss to his lips. “Be careful or I’ll make you Miss Kitty,” she warned, pulling back from him, her eyes sparkling with humor.

“Not sure red’s my best color, luv,” he countered. “Would clash with my delicate complexion.”

Buffy laughed again, flopping over onto her back right next to him. “Well, I’m sure we’ll work something out, but you know you’ll always be the eye-candy sidekick, right?”

Spike raised a brow, looking down at her. “Will I, then?”

“Yup,” Buffy confirmed. “Robin to my Batman, Tonto to my Lone Ranger, Clark Kent to my Superman—”

“You do know that Clark Kent _is_ Superman, yeah?” Spike wondered patiently, cutting her off.

Buffy waved a dismissive hand. “The point is, I’ll be all hero-y, and you’ll be there looking pretty, shirtless, wearing tight jeans, making all the onlookers swoon. Then, I’ll capture the bad guy, you’ll kiss me, and I’ll pinch your sweet ass, and everyone will cheer and sweep us away to buy us drinks at the saloon.”

“Got it all figured out, have you?”

“Uh-huh,” she confirmed. “How else am I gonna get to pinch your sweet ass?”

Spike turned his head, casting his gaze back over his shoulder at the subject of conversation, then looked back at Buffy. “Could just ask, I reckon,” he suggested casually. “’Course, there’s always a quid pro quo.”

Buffy raised her brows. “Yeah, Dr. Lecter, and what would be the quo? … The quid? Or is it the pro? Which comes first?”

Spike smirked at her. “Whichever you want, pet.”

Spike rolled away from her, turning onto his stomach, and reached down off the edge of the bed to the floor. Rolling back over to face her, he held up two sets of gleaming, silver handcuffs and matching manacles. They hung loosely from his thumb by their chains, clinking together almost musically and shining in the glow of the candles.

“Do you trust me, Slayer?”

Buffy bit her bottom lip, her eyes growing wide, but then gave him the slightest of nods.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike’s demeanor changed like the flipping of a switch as he fastened the last handcuff with a soft ‘click’ of locking metal. A wicked gleam surfaced in his eyes as he surveyed his handiwork – the Slayer, nude and defenseless, spread-eagle in his bed, and not a single annoying Scooby would come lookin’ for her for hours, perhaps days.

“Spike?” Buffy asked hesitantly, seeing the sudden change in him.

The vampire gave her a malevolent grin. “Been waitin’ a long time for this,” he admitted. “Don’t worry, Slayer, I’ll take my time, make sure ya scream real good before it ends for you.”

“Spike?” Buffy asked again, tugging on the chains, her trepidation growing.

Spike stalked around to the other side of the bed and began removing candles from the top of a wooden trunk. “No need to fight, pet. I assure you, my bed is already Slayer-proof… as are those chains. Special-made by the Svartalves, yeah? Just fer you.”

Buffy hmphed, disbelieving, tugging on them with all her considerable strength to absolutely no effect.

“What’s in there?” Buffy asked nervously, giving up momentarily on her struggles and lifting her head up to see what he was doing.

Spike chuckled, deep and wicked. “You got your toy chest, I got mine,” he explained, lifting the lid.

“Mine’s a weapons’ chest,” Buffy corrected.

Spike shrugged. “You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to.”

Buffy saw gleaming metal blades and chains and other things that she didn’t even _want_ to know the names of inside the trunk. She watched as the vampire picked out two rusty railroad spikes and set them down almost lovingly on the bedside table.

“Not yet, _my precious_ , soon,” he murmured to them, turning his attention back to the chest.

Spike pulled a small, twin-edged dagger from the chest and held it up, considering it. He touched the sharp tip to the end of his finger and blood immediately welled up around the gleaming blade. Spike sucked his finger between his lips and sighed in pleasure.

“Still tastes like you,” he breathed blissfully, looking back at Buffy. “’Course, I got an all-you-can-eat Slayer buffet now, don’t I? Wonder how long I can keep you alive to sup on?”

“Spiiike, this isn’t funny now … or cute or BDSM-y or whatever you think—”

Buffy’s words were cut off by the blade being pressed against her throat, not quite hard enough to draw blood, but enough to make her stop moving.

“Not tryin’ to be anything but what I am. You’ve heard o’ me, yeah? William the Bloody? Slayer o’ Slayers?” he growled against her ear.

Buffy swallowed hard, but otherwise didn’t move, her heart racing, the sound of it pounding in her ears in a deafening staccato rhythm.

“Now be a good little Slayer – struggle, scream, bleed, cry –  but don’t yammer on like a scared little bint,” he advised her, pulling back and returning to the chest.

“Remember what Finn said?” Buffy continued, not taking his advice. “He’ll come after you if you spill one drop of human blood,” Buffy reminded him, warningly.

Spike grinned deviously. “Can’t bloody wait,” he purred. “Look forward t’ ripping his intestines out with my bare hands and stuffing them down his sanctimonious throat.

“Hope he brings the little trollop, too. Show her what a real man is before I drain ‘er … Very. Slowly.”

Buffy growled, pulling and yanking against the restraints in earnest.

“Oh, I’m sorry, pet. Did ya want t’ watch the deed? Should’a said so before.

“She gets as wet as you when she’s fighting, did ya know? Could’ve had those long, lean legs wrapped around my hot, tight, little body that night in the Magic Box. You really should’ve said, Buffy,” he told her with a cloying tone of mock concern.

Buffy shrieked in frustration, still pulling against the chains, but she was doing nothing more than raising bruises on her wrists and ankles. They were not giving, and neither was the bed.

The next element of torture Spike pulled from the chest made Buffy’s eyes go wide in pure, heart-wrenching horror.

“No … no, no … Spi—William, William, listen to me. You don’t want to do this. I know you, and you don’t want—”

Spike chuckled, low and melodious. Buffy wasn’t sure she ever heard anything more frightening.

“William’s not here, is he? Gone off t’ write a poem ‘bout a lark, I reckon. Hidin’ in the corner like a nancy-boy,” Spike informed her, stalking closer, his instrument of torture held up for her to see in all its glory.

“Spike, _baby_ , remember ‘eternity’, and till the end of the world’, and … and ‘I love you’?” Buffy cajoled, pulling frantically at her bonds. They didn’t give an inch.

Spike’s alabaster skin glowed in the candlelight, the pink wound on his abdomen still visible. His muscles rippled and quivered with pleasure in anticipation of what was to come as he felt the fear surge off her body in waves. His cock stood at full attention, tightly pressed against his lower stomach, apparently also quite enthusiastic about having the Slayer at his complete and utter mercy. 

“Spike, please, this isn’t you,” Buffy tried again, still tugging at her bonds, trying to get free.

“That’s where you’re wrong, pet. This is me. This is Spike. Vampire, remember? Evil,” he reminded her as the hand holding the long, thin torture device hovered dangerously over her torso, deciding just where to begin.

Without further warning, he struck, dropping it to her flushed skin, and drawing an excruciating line down her middle, from her breasts to her pubic bone.

Buffy’s anguished shriek filled the chamber and tears sprang to her eyes unbidden. She writhed and struggled beneath him, her body arching in a bow as she tried in vain to escape.

Spike closed his eyes and breathed in deeply as she trembled and writhed on the bed, soaking in the utter nirvana of her struggles and screams.

“Now _that’s_ bloody heaven,” he groaned in rapture, his eyes still closed, soaking in the bliss of fear rolling off her.

“Smells like … terror,” he told her, looking back down at her as she struggled to get free.

“Scream for me, Slayer … scream,” he hissed, mercilessly bringing the feather down again.

She did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has Spike gone all Angelus on her … with a feather? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the bees knees -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally spectacular! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks it!


	37. Hurts So Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike let their wicked sides, the Slayer and the vampire, come out to play.

 

“Please! Spike! Just stop!” Buffy shrieked, laughing and crying and writhing beneath him.

He straddled her hips, her hands and feet still bound to the bed, the feather held menacingly above her ticklish right side, having tortured the left into submission.

“Say it again,” he demanded in a low rumble.

“I love you! I love you! I love you! Please stop now!”

Spike chuckled, tracing the soft feather over her breasts and watching goose-flesh prickle her skin in its wake.

“Say it again,” he whispered, his eyes looking up to meet hers.

“I love you,” Buffy replied softly. “I’m going to kill you, but I love you.”

A low rumble of laughter rolled from his chest, flowing over her like rich, warm honey. He leaned down, and kissed her deeply, but gently. “I love you, Buffy,” he murmured against her lips.

“I can tell by the way you love to torture me,” she teased, lifting her head up and taking his lower lip between her teeth and biting down gently.

“You’re quite good at it,” she observed, releasing his lip.

“Vampire, remember?” he replied, smirking down at her.

“I do … and if that stiffy is any indication, I do believe you enjoy your work _immensely_.”

“Understatement, that is,” he admitted, his eyes burning with the flame of blue avarice.

“So, is it time for the ‘quid’ part now? When do I get my turn?” Buffy wondered, looking up at him with a dangerous gleam in her eye.

“As soon as I take care of one little thing,” he assured her.

He shifted his position, sliding down her body, leaving a trail of slick pre-cum on her skin as he moved between her thighs. Spike turned first to the right and to the left, unlocking the shackles that held her ankles, leaving the chains still hooked on the bedposts.

“Hard t’ fuck you properly like that,” he explained, lifting her legs up and out. He folded her in half, hooking her feet beneath her still-shackled arms, to open her glistening pussy to him fully.

Spike dipped his mouth to her sweet quim, which was wet and dripping with her desire. He trailed his tongue from her taint to her clit in one long, languorous motion, then circled her clit, teasing her right to the edge of reason.

Buffy bit her bottom lip and moaned in pleasure, her body quivering as the already-burning fires were stoked ever higher. God, she needed to cum. Badly! She had to admit that there was something about being completely under his control that turned her on way more than she’d ever thought was possible.

It wasn’t something she’d ever allowed herself to experience with anyone else, and it went against her Slayer nature – which could be what made it so exciting and taboo. Even feigned fear and anger seemed to boost her adrenaline, though the way he’d growled and threatened her with that dagger, combined with some things he said that touched her inner-green-eyed-monster, it wasn’t that hard to feign it.

It all combined to stir a deliciously dark and dangerous desire in her – to be controlled and to control. Both held equal allure deep inside her, in the murky corners of herself that she was used to ignoring, hiding, smothering. She didn’t have to smother them with Spike, though. He knew her, he’d uncovered those places within her, brought them to the surface, let them be okay … natural, accepted, even embraced.

She didn’t have to hide those parts of herself anymore. Not with Spike. He wouldn’t let her crash against the rocks. He might torture her to the edge of sanity, but he’d never betray her trust.

Whether they were whirling in the darkness or floating in the light, there was no judgment, only acceptance.

“God, Spike, please…” she begged, lifting her hips up to press against his mouth.

“Please what, Slayer?” he taunted before pulling her swollen button of desire between his teeth and biting down gently.

“Arrrgh! Fuck! Yes … please! I need more!” Buffy demanded, her body writhing and wriggling beneath him.

“Do ya, then?” he asked casually, slipping one finger just barely into her throbbing channel. “That do?”

“NO! FUCK!”

“Think yer forgetin’ who’s in charge here, Slayer,” Spike continued taunting her, swirling his tongue around her clit delicately as he slid that one finger slowly in and out of her wet, slick channel. “Who’s in charge?”

“Argggggghhh!” Buffy screamed in frustration, starting to thrash.

“Wrong answer,” Spike purred against her burning skin. “Two more guesses. Who’s in charge?”

“YOU! FUCK! YOU ARE!” she gave in, still trying to move enough to make what he was doing to her less torturous.

“And who do you belong to?” he continued, sliding his dripping finger down over her taint to her puckered rosebud.

“FUCK! SPIKE! PLEASE!”

“Try that again, Slayer. Who do you belong to?” he asked again, slipping his finger into her tight, puckered hole.

Buffy gasped, her body trembling as bolts of hot lightning shot through her. “You, you fucking vampire! YOU!”

“Mmmmmmm …” Spike purred, probing deeper with his slick finger in her ass. “That sounds delicious. Say it again. Say, ‘I belong to you, you fucking vampire.’”

Buffy bit back another scream of frustration and ground out, “I belong to you. You mother-fucking sick son-of-a-bitch vampire.”

Spike chuckled against her clit, cool air tickling over her wet, hot skin, sending shivers of lust washing through her.

“Now, then … what is it you wanted, my slutty little Slayer?” he asked before touching the tip of his tongue down on her clit again, just hard enough to remind her of how good it would feel to have him pounding into her, slamming against it, fucking her hard and deep.

“Please … you’re killing me,” she moaned, tugging against the restraints on her wrists. They didn’t budge. What the fuck were they made of?!

“I haven’t even _begun_ to kill you, pet,” he assured her, his voice deep, resounding with desire.  “And it will hurt. And you’ll love it. You’ll beg me to hurt you again.”

Buffy squirmed beneath him, her heart rate beginning to gallop, her adrenaline pumping again. “No, I won’t … I—”

“No lies, Slayer,” Spike stopped her, sitting back to look into her eyes, but leaving that one finger pumping slowly in and out of her tight ass.

“You love the pain, you need it,” he asserted, adding another finger to the one, delving deeper and deeper into her sweet rosebud, stretching her tight ring of muscle open wider, coating her opening with the slick nectar that poured from her pussy.

Buffy gasped and stopped moving, not sure she really wanted to drive those digits deeper. She could feel him stretching her and her body resisting. She could feel the silver ring on his index finger catch on her opening with each slow pump in and out of her. God help her, it hurt just a little … and it felt _delicious_.

Buffy’s head was swimming, her heart speeding along at a gallop and she was starting to have a hard time breathing. Part of her wanted him to keep doing what he was doing, another part wanted him to stop. She felt herself whirling in a tornado of desire tinged with fear, with a good dose of what her old, ingrained ideas of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ were mixed in to muddy the waters even more.

Spike kept talking in a calm, resonant voice as he fucked her ass slowly, spreading his slick fingers wider every few strokes, making her gasp and shudder beneath him. “When you’re fighting, you use the pain, gather the force of it in, mold it into power, and unleash it like a weapon.

“When you’re fucking, you use it to propel you higher, make your zenith that much sharper, make the painful pleasure of it that much more piercing. Give in to the pain, Buffy. It’s your nature,” Spike reminded her.

He dipped his mouth back to her pussy and slid his tongue inside her deep and hard, but only once, before pulling back out.

Buffy’s body arched in pleasure, in anticipation of the fall, but it wasn’t enough. She groaned in frustration, her body hovering over the precipice, but unable to fall.

“Can anyone else balance you on that razor’s edge like I can? On the fringe between ecstasy and agony?” he asked her, slipping his thumb into her quim and letting it fuck her gently as his fingers continued delving into her ass.

“No,” Buffy gasped, barely a whisper, as her heart pounded in her chest and her breath suddenly became shallow and reedy.

“No…? No, what?” Spike asked, glaring down at her with a hard, blue gaze.

“Umm … No … sir?” she tried, her mind muddled by all the sensations he was pouring over her.

“Do you think I’m a gentleman?” Spike wondered, cocking a brow at her.

Buffy shook her head quickly. “No.”

“What am I, then?” Spike purred, lifting his other hand up to tease one nipple to rock-hardness.

“A mother-fucking sick son-of-a-bitch vampire,” Buffy replied hoarsely.

Spike nodded slowly. “That’s right,” he agreed. “And you are my Slayer. _Mine_ ,” he breathed, as his fingers suddenly shoved deeper inside her, a sharp contrast to the gentle rhythmic pumping he’d been employing before.

Buffy’s body reacted to his painful invasion by releasing another flood of slick heat from her throbbing pussy, and making her heart skip several beats. Her whole body felt poised on pins and needles, her need for him growing by leaps and bounds, her lust a barely-bridled thoroughbred, ready to break free.

“Love how wet you are for me, Slayer. How your heart does that little dance when I’m about to fuck you. How your stomach quivers just there …” He touched a finger down on the trembling flesh between her pubic bone and belly button. “How your lips swell.” He gave her a knowing smile. “Both sets of them.

“Love how your pupils dilate, and your eyes turn the most amazing shade of hazel. Did ya know that? Almost looks golden in the candlelight, like there’s a demon inside you trying to get out. Does it feel like that? Like I’m about to release the Kraken?”

“You’ll probably be the first to know – when your head leaves your shoulders,” Buffy challenged in breathless anticipation.

“Mmmm … I can’t bloody wait,” Spike purred, his eyes widening in delight.  “But … I will – wait that is, and so will you,” he teased, going back to the slow, sensual, but torturous pumping of his fingers into her.

“You fucking bastard!” Buffy screamed, bucking against him, not caring any longer if it hurt, she just needed MORE! NOW!

“Oh, I’m sorry. Isn’t that what you wanted, Slayer?” he asked conversationally. “No pain?

“Tell me what you want. Truth. No lies, Buffy,” Spike demanded in a warning tone as his ring caught on her tight band of muscle and tugged as he pulled out of her ass once again.

“I … I want to stake you, you fucking vampire,” she gasped out, glaring at him.

Spike smirked and thrust his fingers into her, hard and deep.

Buffy screamed out in simultaneous pain and pleasure as he stretched her, took her. Her body arched and trembled beneath him, her hips jerking against his fingers, fucking him in desperate reply.

“What else, Slayer? Just gonna stake me, are you? No foreplay?” he asked, his voice little more than a growling rumble in his chest.

Buffy forced her eyes open to look at him and shook her head. “No … I’m gonna hurt you.”

Spike’s eyes flashed momentarily golden, gleaming with demonic power, and he nodded. “Yeah … you promised t’ hurt me in our first fight. Said it was gonna hurt a lot, as I recall. Any idea how hard that got me, Slayer? How much I wanted to feel you hurt me? How much I wanted to hurt you?

“Knew then, you were no ordinary Slayer … you’d puzzled it out. Some never do, ya know? Never learn how t’ use the pain, how to mete it out, how to take it. You do. You know how to use it, you just don’t like to admit it … or you didn’t before.”

Spike pulled his fingers out of her and seemingly in the next moment he was on top of her, crushing her with his weight, his cock poised at the slick, sweet opening of her quim.

“Open your eyes! Look at me!” he demanded, hovering just above her.

When her eyes opened and locked with his, he slammed forward, burying his cock into her spasming pussy with one brutal, bone-jarring stroke. His pubic bone hammered against her clit and the head of his cock pounded painfully against the opening of her womb. Her yearning, hot channel throbbed around his thick cock, clenching and un-clenching around his shaft, threatening to emasculate him, as a long-needed orgasm shook her body.

Her whole body lurched and shuddered beneath him, shards of biting bliss exploding out in all directions as she came. A long, delirious scream was driven from her throat, emanating from deep inside her, releasing all the pent-up need with ear-shattering force.

“That what ya had in mind, Slayer? Shoving yer pointy stick into me, hard and deep, like this?”

“No, vampire … I was gonna make you … hurt much worse,” Buffy challenged, panting for breath. “You haven’t even … gotten my attention yet.”

“Haven’t I, then? Well, have t’ work on that, won’t I?” Spike taunted, reaching a hand between them and clamping his strong fingers down on her tit roughly. He squeezed and kneaded her soft flesh violently, bruisingly, before focusing on her sensitive nipple, pulling and twisting as he began pounding his cock into her with ruthless, merciless power.

Buffy gasped, her body responding to him – to the pain and the pleasure – trembling and spasming beneath him, betraying her words – he had most assuredly gotten her attention. The razor’s edge that he was so good at balancing her on was fast approaching again as he slammed into her, forceful and demanding.

“Beg me, Slayer. Beg me for the pain,” Spike growled before leaning forward and biting down on one erect nipple with his human teeth, his cock still thrusting into her, brutal and relentless.

His hips slapped against hers, echoing in the cavernous room. The insistent rhythm was joined by the slick, squelching sound of his cock driving into that wet, hot channel of hers. God, she was so fucking tight – her pussy wrapped around him like a vise, threatening to trap him deep inside. And so hot – Jesus, she might dust him any moment, her fire was so intense. And so goddamned wicked – the demon inside her was filled with a lust the likes of which he’d never felt before, and the woman … oh, the bloody woman, she had even more.

Spike was as wild with lust as she was. He was bent on fucking her in half, on breaking her, on making her scream in tantalizing torture, and beg him to fuck her that much more.

Buffy drew in a long, raspy breath and Spike drove it out of her in short, squeaking grunts of rapture with every thrust. The sounds bursting from her lips nearly drowned out the rhythmic slapping and squishing wetness created by their bodies slamming together.  Her body shuddered in frenzied bliss, her toes curling, her arms taught, pulling against her restraints, and just like that she was standing at the precipice again, balanced on the edge of pain and pleasure, caught somewhere in the middle of both.

Buffy hovered there, the razor’s edge cutting into her with torturous rapture, unable to fall into the dark abyss or slip back off the bittersweet blade that held her prisoner. Trapped. Trapped between worlds. Trapped between human and demon – walking the tightrope that was a Slayer. Dwelling in death and pain every night, while still living in the light of day, unable to fully embrace either. Death was her gift, but life was her destiny. There was no relief from the constant pressure of both, tugging at her, pulling her apart – human soul and demonic power trapped in an eternal struggle that was a Slayer.

Except here. With Spike she could choose. She could be either – she could be the human, she could be the Slayer – she didn’t have to live between them. He would accept either one, she knew. He wouldn’t love her less if she made him stop now; he wouldn’t love her more if she begged him to hurt her just a little more. He just loved her. Period. Full stop. No matter which road her heart and body took, he would follow.

“Tell me! Tell me what you want, Slayer,” he begged her, desperate to take her wherever she wanted to go – waiting for her to tell him what her body and soul needed in this moment.

“Please … hurt me … fuck … Spike! Hurt me! Harder! Please! I need it! Do it, vampire! HURT ME!” she begged, trashing beneath him like a wild animal, bent on … what? Escape? No, that wasn’t it at all. Attack? Yes, perhaps that was it. Bent on violence, on pain, on destruction, on devastation.

Release the fucking Kraken!

Spike growled, a thunderous rumbling that shook sand loose from the cavern ceiling. It showered down on them like a gentle mist of parched rain, coating the whole room in a layer of dust.

Spike pulled out of her quivering channel and slid his cock down over her taint to her tight, slick rosebud. He pressed ever-so-slightly against her, just enough to feel her body resist the threatened invasion. His prick was slick with her juices, and they’d been dripping down the crack of her ass for hours, it seemed. He could slide in so easily, but there would be no easy – not now. There would be brutal. There would be pain. And she had to want it.

“Tell me … what you … want,” he ground out, barely containing his lust to keep his hips from slamming forward and taking it.

Buffy’s heart raced, threatening to pound right out of her chest. She gulped air, as if she’d suddenly been transported to the top of the world, where there simply was no oxygen to be had. After a moment of stillness, the words he said finally registered in her spinning mind, and she opened her eyes.

Her eyes were wild with desire, her whole body flushed with the heat Spike had been pouring over her, her breath was short and shallow, but her words were unmistakable. “Hurt me, vampire … I fucking dare you.”

Spike thought he was going to cum in that moment, spill his seed all over her sweet, round ass before ever plowing inside her slick walls.

“Fuck…” he growled, low and deep, and then jerked his hips forward, powering through her body’s resistance in one forceful, lust-filled thrust. His cock drove into her, stretching her tight ring of muscle with no mercy, plowing deep inside her, opening her slick walls to his girth, intent on inflicting pain.

Buffy shrieked, her body quivering uncontrollably beneath him as a cacophony of bright, blinding fireworks exploded behind her eyes. She felt herself sliding lengthwise down that razor’s edge at warp speed, half consumed by beautiful bliss, half by agony, balancing precariously between the two. Each sensation heightened the rapture of the other, each playing off the other, ricocheting undiluted passion through her as pain and pleasure fought each other for dominance.

Spike slammed into her wildly, taking everything from her, giving her everything she’d asked for, keeping her floating there between worlds, between darkness and light, between life and death, between heaven and hell. She couldn’t fall into either and wasn’t sure she wanted to. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. How long could she stay here, suspended in such agonizing bliss, before her body shattered into slivers of utter euphoria? She wanted nothing more than to find out.

This place was hers – it was where she belonged – forever living in the cracks between worlds.

She let go then, fully and completely, giving over to the pain, to the pleasure, to the vampire who knew her better than she knew herself. The sharp bliss sliced into her, exposing her soul to the rapturous agony, as she rocketed beyond the edge of the universe into utter oblivion.

Her body convulsed under Spike, her tight ass spasming around his thrusting hardness, trying to pull him deeper, to consume him. She gasped and sucked air in, as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world to fill her lungs, suddenly forgetting how to exhale. He fought through her body’s zenith, determined to keep her on that razor’s edge, holding his own release so long that he, too, was in that place between pain and pleasure with her.

Finally, Buffy remembered how to exhale, the air coming out from her lungs in stuttering gasps and squeaks of pleasure, and the blinding lights that had been bursting behind her eyes began to slowly lessen. She remembered how to breathe again as she floated slowly back to Earth as jerking, spasmodic aftershocks shook her body.

“Spike … please … my hands. Need to … touch you! Please, baby!” she begged, rattling the chains that bound her still as she came back to herself.

Drunk on her lust, on her passion, on the very sound of her pleas, Spike quickly found the discarded key that had slid beneath her sweet ass and moved up her body to comply. He reached over to each of the handcuffs in turn and released them, letting her legs fall quivering to the bed on either side of him as her hands came free.

He slid his body back down between her spasming legs and kissed her fervently as their hips shifted, re-aligning. But, before he could find his bliss deep inside her again, Buffy flipped them both over and pinned him beneath her. In the next instant he felt his left hand being snapped into the cuff.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered as she grabbed his other wrist and likewise secured it.

“You were right about the pain,” Buffy admitted breathlessly, her body still trembling from the trip to the dark side of the moon. She turned and cuffed his ankles, as well, then collapsed atop him bonelessly, her arms and legs having exhausted their ability to function properly for the moment. “I think I want to experiment with that a little … in a minute … or ten.”

“Slaaaayer,” Spike growled warningly, tugging on the restraints with no better luck than Buffy had had.

“Now, now,” she slurred drunkenly, relaxing against his hard, cool body. “You’ll get your turn … when my legs start working again.”

Spike groaned, lifting his hips in a desperate attempt to find his release which was long overdue.

“Stop moving,” Buffy ordered sternly, lifting up to look into his eyes. “I’m in charge now and I say no moving.”

Spike glowered at her but subsided as she collapsed back down atop him with a soft sigh, her body heating him all the way to his bones. Spike tried to think of something else, something other than the woman on top of him, other than his painfully, _desperately_ hard cock, other than how much he needed to fill her with his spunk; something other than her screams and gasps, of the way her body jerked and convulsed in pleasure, something other than the sound of her giving herself to him fully, trusting him unconditionally.

It was impossible.

“Bloody hell! Get on with it, then! I’m dyin’ here, Slayer!” Spike asserted after a couple of minutes, yanking at the chains again to no avail.

“So impatient to face the Kraken you released,” Buffy taunted, blinking her eyes open, still feeling a bit dazed and wobbly as she pushed up to look down at him. “Are you sure you know what you’re asking for?”

“Seems like you’re stallin’. If ya can’t handle it, maybe you should leave it to me, then,” Spike taunted, smirking.

“Oh, I can handle it,” she asserted, unable to ignore the challenge in his voice, getting down off the bed tentatively, making sure her legs were actually working again, before walking over to the toy chest.

“Let’s see now …” she mused, digging through the box of torture devices, weapons, and other, less deadly implements.

She pulled out a riding crop and smacked it down on her palm a couple of times. “Nice. I bet this would leave a mark on that alabaster ass of yours, huh?” she asked. “Would it make you jump when it stung you? Make you beg me to spank you one more time?”

Spike growled and tugged harder at the chains, but to little effect.

“But, then I’d have to turn you over, and I’m really liking the look of your cock all hard and angry like that. I have a couple of ideas – want to put it to good use,” she told him, laying the riding crop down.

She dug in the box a bit more, finally pulling out a long, thin strap of leather that was studded with metal snaps all along its length and holding it up for him to see.

“Don’t muck around with stuff ya’ don’t understand, pet,” he advised, glaring daggers at her.

“Dawn’s not the only one who can read trashy novels,” Buffy informed him, stepping back up to the bed. “And Willow isn’t the only one who knows how to Google.

“Just how long can a vampire stay hard without his balls turning blue? Do a vampire’s balls turn blue? And how do you get such a hard dick in the first place without any circulation?” she wondered, standing over him, dangling the leather cock strap from her fingers threateningly.

“Same way we change our mask from vamp to human and back again, same way we walk and talk and do bloody cartwheels. Demon magic!” Spike informed her. “And, to answer your other question, yes!”

“You do cartwheels?” she asked, amused.

“Not me personally … well, just that once, but that was with that acrobat in Moscow. Bloody amazin’ she was. She could touch her—” Spike stopped abruptly and glared at her. “No, I don’t do bloody cartwheels!”

Buffy laughed wickedly. “I can’t wait to tell Xander that you do cartwheels… and Finn! Do you think I could get a photo to send out with the Christmas cards?”

Spike growled at her, low and dangerous.

“You know, that ‘grr-argh’ stuff would be a lot more scary if you weren’t chained to a bed naked as a jaybird,” she informed him still dangling the cock strap above him. She loved how it made him squirm and made his cock twitch. Fucking scrumptious!

“What does that even mean, ‘naked as a jaybird’? I mean, I don’t think any birds wear clothes in the first place, do they? Not even Big Bird does! So, why a jaybird?” she rambled as she began wrapping the leather around the base of his scrotum and then around his cock, pulling it tight.

“Ow! Yer cutting off my circulation!” he complained, tugging on his bonds vainly.

Buffy snorted. “I think we just established that you don’t have any circulation, Spike.”

“Well, it _pinches_ ,” he amended, shifting his hips to try and dissuade her from her task.

“I think that’s the point,” she informed him, snapping the last of the fasteners in place, then stepping back to admire her work.

His cock stood up like a flagpole, hard and thick, making Buffy’s channel throb just at the sight of it. She reached out and grasped the thick column of steely flesh, stroking gently up and down the length of it. Although her hands-on experience with the male reproductive organ could be described as ‘limited’, she was very sure that Spike’s dick would blow the grading curve for the rest of mankind.

And it was hers. He’d said so. All hers. And she intended to put it to good use.

Spike moaned, his hips rising up to meet her hand as it slid slowly back down the hard shaft. “Fuck, Buffy … please,” he begged, though it was unclear exactly what he was begging for.

She wondered how long he could stand her fucking him before he succumbed and screamed their safe word at her? She grinned wickedly. One way to find out.

Buffy mounted the bed, throwing one leg over his slim hips, her hot channel poised just above the object of her desire. She leaned down over him, her hands splayed out on his muscular chest, as she gazed deeply into his blue eyes.

“Don’t be afraid to scream,” she whispered as she plunged down, impaling her body on his sword, with a grunt of effort and a moan of pleasure.

“Bloody fuck…” Spike growled, his hips lifting up of their own accord to meet hers.

His balls constricted painfully but found no avenue for release. He’d been holding back, on the edge of cumming for much, _much_ too long, and her pussy pulsing and squeezing around his prick now was not helping at all.

“Cum, bleed, or blister,” Buffy taunted as she began riding him at a gallop, merciless and frantic.

“Oh! Wait! I forgot … I guess your only choices are bleed or blister,” she mocked, slamming down on him bruisingly time and again.

“What did you tell me Faith said to you?” Buffy asked rhetorically as she rode his cock like a prized stallion.  “’Ride you at a gallop until your legs buckle and your eyes roll up?  Squeeze you until you pop like warm champagne, and make you beg me to hurt you just a little bit more?’ Was that it?”

“Fuck, Slayer … You’re bloody killin’ me here!” Spike complained, jerking on the chains around his wrists.

“I haven’t even _begun_ to kill you, Spike,” Buffy replied, tossing his own words back at him, slowing her movements, her hips grinding in slow, deliberate circles against his.

“Are you ready to beg me to hurt you just a little bit more yet?” she wondered, lifting up and slamming down hard, then squeezing her throbbing, supple walls tight around his aching flesh.

“Arrrrgh! Fuck! Yes … hurt me … more,” Spike growled out, his demon rising. Spike’s hands clenched into fists, his eyes closed against the painful pleasure of her torture, and the demon bellowed wordless snarls of rage.

“I bet I can do one better than Faith. I can make you beg me to _stop_ ,” Buffy challenged breathlessly as she began building the tempo, squeezing her inner muscles hard around Spike’s yearning cock. She slid her hot, slick channel up and down his thick shaft, faster and faster, plunging down on him like a jack-hammer.

“Never happen, you bloody, evil bitch!” Spike roared at her through his fangs, fighting against his chains, trying to buck her off his hips, but that only fueled her desire – and his.

“Yeah, Slayer, remember? Evil. I eat vampire dust for breakfast!”

She slid her hands from his hard abdomen to his pecs and rolled his nipples painfully between her fingers.

“Beg me!” Buffy demanded, slamming against him.

“Not. Bloody. Likely!” Spike growled between clenched teeth, his yellow demon-eyes flashing with fury.  Despite his bravado, one small, still-functioning part of his brain was afraid that his balls would explode, and not in a good way.

“Tell me what it feels like to be inside me,” she commanded, squeezing her channel even harder around his shaft as she plowed down on him.

“Bloody … fuck …” Spike gasped.

“Tell me!”

“Hell … heaven … fire … ice … death … life … Arrrgghhhh! Fuck! Buffy! Effulgent!” he shrieked past his fangs in tortured rapture, feeling like he was going to be ripped apart, blown into a million little pieces, any moment if he couldn’t empty his aching balls and shoot his spunk into her.

“Oooo, I like that, Spike. I’m gonna fuck you all night, all day. Take you to heaven and hell over and over,” Buffy moaned, squeezing around his thick cock and pumping her hips against him, building her own lust back up, rising back to the edge of the world so she could jump off again.

“How many times do you think I can cum in one day? And just how many times can you? Oh, wait! I know the answer to that one – zero. Zero cums for the evil vampire. Just frustration and pain.

“You’re right, Spike … I do like pain,” she taunted, letting her head loll back and her eyes flutter closed as she rode him up to heaven.

“I’m gonna fuck you in half, you bitch!” he growled at her. “Fill every one of you holes with my jizz, leave you drippin’ like a bloody fuck toy when I get loose!”

“Oh, yeah … talk dirty to me, Spike. Tell me how you’re gonna hurt me, how you’re gonna fuck me … that makes me so hot,” she moaned, letting herself get lost in the pleasure of his body beneath hers, in the sound of his growling rumble, and the bliss of his cock filling her.

God, she loved his cock … the rest of him was pretty damn hot too, but that cock was divine. A work of art. A masterpiece. He could be hard in an instant and stay that way seemingly at will. And, God, did he know how to use it. His spunk was sweet and spicy, and burned her to her core – just like him. She couldn’t get enough of it. She loved tasting their combined cum on his flesh, it was like tasting heaven. More than once she’d eagerly sucked him dry just a short while after he’d spilled his nuts into her pussy, and having his spunk sliding down her throat just made her want him again.

Buffy bucked against him, impaling herself on his hard, thick shaft, hammering her hips down to pound her clit against his pubic bone. She reached back behind her and cupped his swollen, tortured balls in her palm as she announced, “Cumming … God … fuck … cumming! Yessssssss!”

Her hips jerked against him of their own accord, driving his cock into her deep and fast as she felt the world explode and fall away, leaving her floating among the stars again, the sound of his growling frustration immersing her in trembling waves of pleasure.

She squeezed and pinched her nipples as she came, heightening the sensation. Her back bowed into an impossible arch, every muscle in her body constricting in excruciating pleasure. Buffy’s long cry of release echoed off the walls as her hips churned down, fucking him, taking him. She used every inch of that amazing column of cold, hard flesh to build her fires into erupting volcanos that threatened to consume her.

When the spasm of rapture released her, she fell forward, catching herself with her hands braced against Spike’s chest. Her head lolled forward as she gasped for air to replenish the oxygen in her trembling muscles. Her short, disheveled hair hung down across her face, the sparkling combs that had been holding it back when the night began having been long lost. Her body continued to quake in pleasure atop him as she gulped air, her hips slowing, riding his dick gently now, but not stopping.

“You want more? Beg me for it…” she breathed, her eyes turned to that shade of hazel that made Spike see the demon in her and a delicious quiver of fear raced down his spine.

When he didn’t answer, she clamped her channel down around him painfully. “BEG ME!” she demanded.

“FUCK! BUFFY … MORE! YOU GODDAMNED BITCH! MORE!”

Buffy shivered, her body trembling with need just from his words. More. Fucking vampire. He wanted pain? She’d show him pain. She’d break him, he would beg her to stop. He would fucking beg.

Buffy lifted up off him and then slowly slid forward just the slightest bit, his cock slipping over her slick taint and coming to rest at the opening of her ass again.

Buffy bit her bottom lip and pressed down slowly, feeling his cum-slick cock stretch her again, opening her, filling her with trembling ecstasy. She gasped as his glans slipped inside, her tight ring of muscle closing around it, squeezing around the base of his knob like a vise.

“Fuck … Buffy … fucking Christ,” he moaned, not sure if he wanted her to stop or keep going. His balls were aching – no, it was more than that, a _lot_ more. They felt like someone had stomped on them, put them through a meat grinder, stuffed them inside a thimble, and then set them on fire.

He had to cum. Oh, God, he needed to cum. It wasn’t optional; it wasn’t a superficial desire. It was a basic, fundamental necessity.  If she fucked him like this again – up that tight ass of hers – he would burst into flames and dust on the spot. On the plus side, his balls would stop hurting.

“You like that? Does it hurt?” she asked him, pressing down more, slowly taking him into her, making sure he felt every quiver of her body, every throb of desire, every pulse of her heart. His rock-hard cock swept her body’s resistance aside, once again opening her slick, hot walls to his invading desire. “Don’t you want to cum in my ass, Spike? Wouldn’t that feel good? To fill me up with your spunk?”

“FUCK…” Spike groaned, his arms and legs pulling desperately against the restraints, muscles bulging with the effort.

“Oh, poor baby, you need me to fuck you harder? Is that it? You need to be deeper inside me, don’t you? Need to feel my body surrender to you again? Beg me…” she taunted him.

Buffy began to pump up and down on his shaft, slowly at first, but taking him deeper and deeper with each thrust until the globes of her ass hit his lap. The pain remained extraordinary; the pleasure divine. Her body reveled in both, now fully aware of where it could take her and wanting nothing more than to return to that nirvana that existed between worlds.

Release the fucking Kraken … again.

Buffy lifted up and slammed back down on him, sending shards of painful pleasure shooting out in all directions. “Fuck! Yes!” she screamed, raising up again and coming down, driving his cock into her brutally.

“Arrrggghhh! Fuck!” she shrieked as she lifted up once again, ready to send herself hurtling back into the rapturous depths of the pain that he’d shown her.

“Pickles! Fucking pickles!” Spike screamed before she took him again. His yellow eyes actually rolling back in his head as she pushed him beyond anything he’d ever felt before. Pain and pleasure meshed into a fog of complete and utter euphoria that he was sure would end him right there.

His demon retreated then, defeated, leaving the man to face this madness alone.

Buffy reached back to quickly unsnap the strap that had pinched off his means of release, freeing his balls and cock from the restraint. In the next instant, she plunged back down on him, driving a scream of rapturous agony from her own lips. Then she began fucking him hard and fast, driving through the pain into the ecstasy, her resisting, spasming walls throbbing with need around his prick.

“Cum … cum … cum in me. Fill my ass up, you bastard,” she demanded, but it wasn’t necessary.

Spike screamed – not growled, not roared, _screamed_ — exploding into her burning inferno of lust. His cold, desperate seed rocketed out, battering her ass in a frantic surge of orgasmic bliss as his balls erupted like a long dormant volcano. And it just kept coming – a seemingly never-ending torrent of bliss, lifting him higher and higher into the stratosphere. The relief was overwhelming, overpowering almost to the point of being unbearable. He shuddered and jerked beneath her, his body completely out of his control and fully in hers. He’d never been rocked so hard, never hurt so much, never burned so passionately in the fires of rapture.

Spike felt like he was whirling through space, spinning out of control, falling and soaring, being consumed from the inside by a burning sun. He’d never before felt anything more unbearably, horribly, catastrophically blissful. The darkness within seemed to vanish completely for an instant, burned away by the passion of the woman who tortured him into submission.

Never before. Never had he completely submitted to anyone or anything in a century of unlife. Not like this. Not Dru. Not Darla. Not even Angelus had driven him to complete and utter surrender.

Only his Slayer. Only Buffy. She made him _want_ to surrender, to give himself to her, to bow at her feet and be her willing slave. Forever.

Slowly returning to Earth, Spike’s eyes finally fluttered open, gradually focusing on the angel above him. Her eyes were soft, concerned, but still dark and dilated with pleasure, that small glow of hazel just barely visible at the edges. Her face was flushed bright pink, and heat radiated off her like a blazing fire.

“God, that was fucking incredible,” she approved breathlessly, before asking, “Are you okay?” as she gently laid her palm on his cheek.

Spike closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, nodding slowly. “Brilliant,” he mumbled dazedly.

“The word was ‘Siberian Pickles’,” she reminded him with a small smile.

Spike nodded again, his eyelids too heavy to lift open. “Not enough blood in m’ brain t’ remember it,” he admitted. “Best find somethin’ shorter in the future.”

“You scream like a girl,” she continued teasing him lightly.

Spike opened one eye, all he had energy for, and glared at her. “You would too if someone had yer balls in a bloody vise,” he retorted bitterly.

A sympathetic laugh rumbled in her chest, as she laid her body down atop him. She rested her head on his shoulder and snuggled her over-heated skin against his coolness. She could feel his spunk beginning to slip past his spent, softening cock, leaking from her blissfully battered ass. The pain still lingered – she was sure it would for a while – tingling her body with the carnality of it, and she shivered with pleasure.

“You eat vampire dust for breakfast?” he teased. “That go on yer Wheaties or—?”

Buffy chuckled, her body jiggling lightly atop his. She definitely needed to work on her vampire torturing taunts. “It sounded more sinister and way less gross in my head,” she admitted.

“I love you,” she whispered, letting her eyes fall closed.

“Good thing. Hate t’ see what you’d do to me if ya still hated me,” he replied, trying to wrap his arms around her, but being thwarted by the chains.

Buffy tittered a muffled laugh. “Pain and torture and mind-blowing sex is really exhausting,” she mumbled dreamily, relaxing fully atop him.

“Uhh … Slayer?” Spike questioned, rattling the chains. “Little help here.”

There was no reply from the prone form atop him.

“Buffy? The chains.”

Nothing but slow, steady breathing met him in response.

“Siberian Pickles?” he tried.

Buffy might’ve snored a little then.

Spike rolled his eyes and stopped rattling the chains.

“I love you, too, you bloody wicked woman,” he sighed, closing his eyes and getting lost in the warmth of her body against him, which almost made up for leaving him in chains.

Almost.

Okay, that’s a lie. Spike would lay chained on a bed of nails with fire ants crawling all over him, and Angelus singing Barry Manilow’s greatest hits at the top of his lungs in the next room if it meant being with Buffy. He only wished he could wrap her in his arms and hold her through the night now, but he relished every moment with her – every second of pain, every rapturous epoch of pleasure, every gentle kiss and tender touch, every ‘I love you’ – and wouldn’t trade it for anything, no matter what.

She knew him like no one else ever had or would; and he knew her to the depths of her soul – her darkness and her light. He was convinced that they were made for each other, two puzzle pieces, which fit together perfectly, seamlessly, inseparably.

Two pieces of one whole that nothing in heaven or Earth could pull asunder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my … was that last line a challenge?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulous -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally marvelous! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks it!


	38. Seeing Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Afternoon delight turns into a nightmare for everyone at Chez Summers.

****

 

**A Few Days Later:**

Spike had just finished watching Passions, and had clicked off the TV when he heard Xander enter through the back door of Buffy’s house. Today was the day that the carpenter was supposed to be delivering the new and improved, Slayer-proof bedframe that he’d been working on, so Buffy had been waiting for him in the kitchen.

Although Xander had been relatively civil to Spike since the doctor-patient consultation and their shared bottle of whiskey at the wedding, Spike could still feel some undertones of animosity in the git – and, honestly, the feeling was mutual. For Buffy’s sake, Spike tried to just avoid him.

Spike knew that Buffy cared for the whelp, so he was doing his level best to not stir up trouble by taunting the wanker … too much. It was bloody torture. Possibly worse than any torture Buffy had, or ever would, inflict on him. And there was no safe word to get it to stop, either.

Hearing the two friends talking amiably in the kitchen, Spike got up and headed upstairs. If they needed his muscle for anything, Buffy would find him. He had something he wanted to talk to the witches about, anyway. Despite their involvement in the ‘intervention’, which Buffy had told him about, they both seemed to have accepted him in Buffy’s life and had been friendly toward him.

Spike knocked on Willow’s bedroom door – well, actually, it was now back to being Willow and Tara’s bedroom. Tara had officially moved back in a couple of days ago. He was glad to see the witches back together. He generally liked both of them, despite Willow’s penchant for casting of wayward spells, and was genuinely happy they were happy.

Behind the door he heard whispers and muffled laughter as someone jumped out of bed. There were thumps and steps and more giggling laughter, and then finally the door opened a crack and a disheveled, but mostly-dressed, Willow peered out at him.

“Spike! Hi! Uh, what’s up?” she asked trying to sound casual, running her fingers through her hair in an effort to comb it into some semblance of neatness.

“Need t’ have a word with you ladies,” he informed her, pushing the door open fully.

“Hey! I didn’t invite you in!” Willow objected, stepping back from necessity, it was either that or get bowled down.

“Don’t actually need an invite t’ enter a room after I’ve been invited into the house, Red,” he informed her, walking past.

“Yeah, well, it’s _rude_ ,” she advised him, closing the door behind the vampire.

“I’ll make a note o’ that,” Spike replied to her, but kept on walking.

“Glinda,” Spike greeted the second witch causally as he strolled across the room and over near the window.

Tara was in the bed, and had hastily pulled the covers up discreetly when he entered. “S-S-Spike,” she replied shyly, giving Willow a wide-eyed, emphatic, ‘Oh, my God, get rid of him!’ look.

It was late afternoon and the sun was shielded from this window by a tree, so Spike could get right up to the window with no chance of getting burned. He looked out and saw Buffy and Xander bringing in the pieces of the bedframe from the carpenter’s truck, which was parked in the alley, into the backyard. It looked like it was made from thick, sturdy hardwood, but, since it was disassembled, each piece wasn’t too heavy, they were managing well enough.

“Red lost the rock, paper, scissors battle, eh?” Spike asked, turning his back to the window, and giving Tara a knowing smirk.

Tara turned a lovely shade of pink, nodding timidly, and pulled the sheet she was holding even tighter beneath her chin.

“No worries, I won’t be long, then ya can get back to your afternoon delight,” he assured them, leaning back against the windowsill nonchalantly. “Actually, that’s what I wanted t’ talk to you about.”

“No – there will be no afternoon delighting! The answer is a big, fat ‘not on your life!’” Willow told him in no uncertain terms, her ‘resolve face’ emerging.

“What’s the big hairy deal with the apparently universal male fantasy of being with two lesbian women? Why would a guy want to be with two women who have absolutely no interest in his penis?” the red witch asked crossly, moving to interpose herself between Spike and Tara.

Spike’s brows went up in surprise, but a smile tugged the corners of his mouth up. “Well, not what I was suggesting, pet, but if you really want to know, I’ll tell ya.  The actual fantasy is to be with two very hot, very horny, young, supple, penis-adoring sex kittens – porn star contortionists are preferred – who are so bloody turned on by said penis that they lose all control and just ravish the nearest living thing, which may be each other.

“It’s really all about us and our amazing naughty bits,” Spike revealed with a shrug. “The way it would go is: the two sexy kittens fall under our spell as we stand with hands on our hips, our lordly sex organ inspiring awe and ravenous sexual desire. We throw our heads back with a wicked, conquering laugh, penis wavin’ like a lust-inspiring beacon in the breeze. And then the two birds proceed to please us in many and sundry ways for hours on end, which may include performing naughty lesbian sex for our kingly amusement. 

“Besides, two mouths and four hands can do a bloody sight more to our godly bodies than one woman alone,” Spike finished with a smirk.  

Willow frowned at him. “So … you don’t want to watch us have sex?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘no’ if yer offerin’, Red,” Spike admitted, still smirking.

“No! Not offering! There is no offering! We are offer-less,” Willow replied hastily.

“Shame that,” Spike said with regret, his mind wandering off on naughty paths that Buffy might not exactly approve of. Then again … maybe she would. Or not. Spike’s balls tried to retreat inside his body, thinking of Buffy’s previously stated position on sharing. Still, might be worth a query, at least.

“S-s-so, what is it you wanted, then?” Tara asked from behind Willow, bringing Spike’s attention back to the here and now.

“Huh? Oh, right,” Spike shook his head, refocusing.  “Was wonderin’ if you lovely witches had some kind of sound-dampening spell that one might use to keep the afternoon delight contained a bit better?” Spike requested.

“On both sides of the wall,” he clarified, quirking a brow at them. “Not that I mind hearin’ it, bloody hot, to be honest, but I think between the four of us, we might be doin’ some permanent damage t’ the bit.”

“Oh,” Tara whispered, her lovely pink blush turning to bright red.

“Oh,” Willow echoed her, not turning quite so red, but still becoming uncomfortably warm. “Ummm, yeah, I mean, I’m off the magics but maybe Tara…?” she looked back at the other witch questioningly.

Tara nodded. “I’m s-s-sure I can—”

Tara’s words were cut off by five loud popping noises from outside in the back yard. Before anyone could look outside or even question the sounds, Spike screamed in pain, and bright red blood splattered in a fine mist all over Willow’s face, neck, and shirt.

“Spike!” Willow exclaimed, moving forward to help him as he doubled over in agony, clutching at a wound on the right side of his chest.

“What is it! What happened?” she asked frantically, trying to find the source of the blood.

“Been. Bloody. Shot,” Spike ground out, dropping to his knees and trying to fight through the pain. “What is it with this house and guns!? Does Dirty Harry live next door?”

“Shot?! By who? How?” Willow questioned, standing up and looking out the window into the backyard to try and find the source of the bullet.

“Oh, my God! Buffy!” the red witch exclaimed in horror. “Tara! Call 9-1-1! Buffy’s been shot, too!”

“Buffy!?” Spike screamed, stumbling back to his feet and lurching for the window. He looked down to see Buffy on her back on the ground, a bright red stain of blood spreading alarmingly over her chest, and Xander screaming for help over her. Spike spun around, heading for the door.

“Spike! You can’t! The sun!” Willow reminded him, trying to grab his arm and stop him.

“Fuck the sun!” Spike growled, pulling free of her, yanking the door open, and staggering into the hallway.

Willow followed right on his heels as Tara phoned for help, the redhead trying to convince the vampire to wait.

“Xander’s with her! I’ll go too,” she reasoned with him. “I’m sure it will be fine,” she assured the vampire, but he was having none of it.

Still bleeding and clutching his chest, Spike half-rolled, half-slid down the stairs. In the foyer, he found his feet again and grabbed his duster from the coat stand. He continued through the house to the back door, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

“Spike! Don’t!” Willow warned as he opened the kitchen door and saw Xander kneeling next to the prone body of the Slayer, still screaming for help. The carpenter’s big hands were pressing hard on a wound in her chest, trying to staunch the bleeding, but with little effect.

Spike ignored the witch. Releasing the pressure he had on his wound, he swung his duster over his head and lurched forward, almost falling again as he went down the few stairs to the yard. He began to smoke and sizzle almost immediately as the late afternoon sun found his undead flesh.

“Buffy! Jesus! Buffy!” he exclaimed, ignoring the burning sun, which heated his skin painfully. He made it to her in an instant, and dropped down on his knees across from Xander.

“What the bloody fuck happened!? Buffy!” Spike reached a blood-soaked hand out and touched her cheek. Her eyes were distant, dazed and unfocused, but they slowly shifted toward him then. The exposed flesh of Spike’s hand began to crackle and burn in the sun, but he didn’t remove it from her skin, afraid that if he stopped touching her, she would vanish into the ether. Again.

“It was Warren!” Xander explained breathlessly, making Spike look up sharply.

“How? … He’s…” Spike began.

“Out on bail!” Xander filled in. “Apparently Thing 1 and Thing 2 scrounged up enough money to get him out. At least that’s what he said before he shot Buffy … along with other clichéd, villain-y things.

“Spike! You’re burning!” Xander noticed then. “And bleeding! Get inside!”

“Spike, please!” Willow agreed, tugging on his arm with little effect. “You won’t be any good to Buffy if you’re all dust in the wind! I mean, it’s great if you’re in Kansas, but not so much on the Hellmouth!”

Spike looked down at his Slayer then, her eyes blinked slowly, he wasn’t sure if she could even see him, but he couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave her. Not again.

“The paramedics are here!” Willow told him, trying to get him to come with her. “It’ll be okay! Help is here!” But Spike didn’t seem to even hear her.

Buffy opened her mouth then, a trickle of blood escaping her lips as she tried to speak.

“Don’t try to talk, Buffy!” Xander advised frantically, still pressing down hard on the bullet wound, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything to staunch the flow. Blood seemed to be pouring out at an alarming rate, soaking her shirt, his hands, and the ground.

Buffy swallowed hard and tried again. “S-sorry,” was barely audible, but sounded like an air horn blaring against Spike’s ear. “Keep … promise. Pickles.”

“No, Buffy … no, no, no!” Spike exclaimed, shaking his head, tears burning his eyes as if they were made of acid. “You keep _your_ bloody promise! Don’t you dare leave me again!”

Buffy coughed, strangled and wet, blood droplets flying from her lips to coat her chin and neck with her lifeblood. Then her eyes fluttered closed as she slipped into unconsciousness.

“SLAYER! DON’T YOU BLOODY DIE ON ME!” Spike screamed at her as the paramedics got to them.

Xander stepped back to let them in, moving around Buffy’s prone form to grab Spike’s other arm and together he and Willow bodily dragged the screaming, smoldering vampire back into the safety of the house.

Inside, Tara quickly draped wet towels over him, cooling the scorched flesh and extinguishing any remaining spots that might burst into flame, but Spike barely noticed.

“No, Buffy, no … no, no, no,” he cried, writhing on the floor in agony, only a small part of which was physical.

“Spike, she’ll be okay!” Willow tried to assure him, kneeling down near him. “I promise!”

Spike growled then, his furious demon surfacing in an instant. He wrapped his good hand around Willow’s throat and squeezed. “Don’t promise things ya can’t bloody deliver!” he roared at her, tossing her back into the kitchen cabinets with a hollow thud.

“Hey!” Xander intervened, standing over Spike menacingly. “We’re not the enemy here! You want to get your vampire back on? Want some nice warm, fresh blood, straight from the tap? I support that! Get it from fucking Warren!”

Spike sprang up to his feet, blood still flowing from the forgotten bullet wound in his chest. “Brilliant bloody idea,” he growled, his saffron eyes flashing with blood-thirsty fury.

“S-Spike, noooo…” Tara cajoled gently, stepping in front of him and placing a hand on his bloodied chest, as if she could actually stop him. “T-That’s not what Buffy would want. He’s not a d-demon! He’s human … it’s a matter for the p-police,” the white witch urged. “Buffy needs you now more than ever … y-you s-should be there when she wakes up. You should go to the hospital.”

Spike did not push her aside or growl at the gentle witch, but simply stared at her with barely-contained rage flashing in his monstrous eyes. Her eyes were soulful and compassionate, but there was steel in them too, imploring him to listen. His demon flared and seethed inside him, intent on finding the nerd who had brought so much pain into his life and showing him what real pain was. Another part of him knew that if he did that, if he gave into his fury now and hurt a human, Buffy would never trust him again. She was his light, she was his impetus to change. She’d given him her trust, had his chip removed, he’d promised that he would not hurt anyone.

She’d believed in him and he’d promised.

He’d promised Buffy.

_‘ARRRRGGHHHHH!’_ his demon snarled inside his mind. Spike closed his eyes and beat his forehead with his fists, trying to rattle the cacophony of thoughts and voices in there into something he could wrest back under his control. He felt like he was being torn in half, the struggle to contain the furious monster within him was so overwhelming in its intensity. How could he walk away from this? How could he leave it for the police? Hadn’t they done that already? And look where that got them!

But, he’d promised Buffy.

“If you want to go with Buffy, you need to get your shit together and now!” Xander demanded then, nudging Spike sharply in the shoulder, jerking the vampire back into the moment and away from his internal struggle.

Spike’s eyes flashed opened and he glared daggers at Xander, a low rumbling growl vibrating in his chest.

“S-spike … Buffy needs you to be strong now,” Tara said gently, drawing his gaze to her as his growl subsided.

“Drop the scary-face and chill the fuck out. Can you do that!?” Xander demanded impatiently.

Spike squeezed his eyes closed tightly, clenching his jaw until he thought his teeth would shatter, and nodded. Within a few moments, his human features resolved into an anguished, contorted version of his usual handsome appearance.

“Okay, Will, can you and Tara go find Dawn?” Xander asked, looking at the witch who had risen and come back over to them. “Spike and I will go to the hospital with Buffy.”

“But how?” Willow asked, still rubbing her throat and glaring angrily at the vampire. “Spike’s half fried already!”

“Not half… had worse,” Spike interjected determinedly.

“Hurry up, they’re leaving! Let’s try to get you in that ambulance,” Xander suggested, pulling the wet towels off that still clung to Spike. “You’re shot, too, they shouldn’t mind,” he pointed out. “Just keep the fangs stashed! And … and don’t let them take your damn pulse!

“Get Dawn now! We’ll meet at the hospital, okay?” Xander directed at Willow and Tara as he and Spike, again covered in his duster, headed for the door.

“W-we’ll be there soon,” Tara promised, looking and sounding worried.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

At the hospital, Spike and Xander hurried after the paramedics as they wheeled Buffy into the emergency room. Nurses and doctors swarmed over her. They began attaching wires, monitors, and IVs, taking vitals, typing her blood, all while still rolling her down the hall to an emergency operating theatre.

A couple of nurses tried to help Spike, but he brushed them off brusquely, following Buffy.

The door to the small operating room closed in Spike’s face. He started to push it open, to follow, but Xander caught up with him then and tugged him away and to the side where there were windows that looked into the room.

“Don’t. Pretty sure you aren’t an actual doctor. Let them work,” he told Spike, as he pressed against the glass to see what was happening.

Spike reluctantly acquiesced, standing next to the larger man, peering in helplessly as the staff worked. A heart monitor was attached to Buffy, and a thin, green line bumped slowly and erratically, a soft ‘beep’ sounding with each beat of her heart. Spike didn’t need that to tell him that her heart was struggling.

He also didn’t need to see the nurse quickly attach a bag of plasma and blood to the IV to know that Buffy’s body was dangerously, ominously low on the life-sustaining liquid.

‘ _You took too much, my darling, deadly boy_ ,’ Dru’s voice flashed in his mind. _‘She won’t sing now. No tears to water my garden. My daisies will all die … they always die. No more dancing under the stars. All’s the shame. Oh, don’t pout, my sweet Spike, we have more little birdies. Practice is its own delicious reward. I wonder what song her mummy will sing when they find her body?’_

Spike clenched his jaw, forcing the memory back into the deep recesses of his mind. This wasn’t just a girl, it was Buffy, it was the Slayer. She was strong. She was supernatural. She can survive. She _would_ survive.

Suddenly, the green line on the heart monitor went flat and a long, dire ‘ _beeeep’_ began, deafening in its urgency even to Xander.

“Buffy! Jesus, Buffy!” the young man cried, pounding his fists lightly on the glass, willing his friend to fight, to live.

“Slayer! Fight! Damn it! Buffy!” Spike’s frantic voice joined Xander’s in exhorting her to live, in willing it with every fiber of their beings.

The doctors shocked her heart with electric paddles, making her body arch and jerk painfully. Xander and Spike both jerked as well, feeling the pain of it as if the electricity ran from Buffy straight into them.

Her heart beat began again, once, twice, three times … then the flat ‘ _beeeep’_ returned like a recurring nightmare.

Another shock.

Nothing.

Another.

The long, ominous beep continued.

“BUFFY!” Xander and Spike both screamed, one voice of anguish and fright.

Then the doctors and nurses stopped. Everything seemed to stop. The whole world stopped. The urgency inside the room was gone in that instant, like someone had flipped a switch.

“Time of death,” one of the female doctors announced, pulling a sheet up over Buffy’s face. “Fifteen fifty-five.”

“NOOOOOOOOO!” Spike wailed, turning and striding purposely for the door to the small room.

Xander was nearer to it and placed himself in front of it, blocking Spike’s way.

“Don’t want t’ hurt you,” Spike growled menacingly.

“And I offer my full and hearty support of that plan,” Xander agreed, his voice steady despite the tears streaming down his face. “But I know what you’re about to do and I can’t let you.”

“I can save her!” Spike argued vehemently, bringing his demon up and ripping at his wrist with his fangs, opening a vein. His anguish was overwhelming him, blinding him to anything but the thought of saving his Slayer, saving the only person who had ever really believed in him. _Saving Buffy_. He could see nothing else. Think of nothing else. Feel nothing but determination to bring her back to him, by any means necessary.

“I can’t let you do that, Spike. She wouldn’t ….” Xander choked on a sob, swallowing hard and blinking back his tears. “She’s the Slayer … you can’t turn her into….” His voice broke again, and another sob wracked his whole body.

“Can and will!” Spike insisted, preparing to push past the larger man.

“If you love her like you say you do, then you know that she wouldn’t want that!” Xander insisted, growing as determined to stop Spike as Spike was to save Buffy. “What was the promise she wanted you to keep?”

Spike looked at him sharply, his golden eyes bright, shimmering with tears, but filled with anger and determination.

“Yeah, I heard her, too. You aren’t the only one with ears. What was it? And what the hell was ‘pickles’? That has to mean something to you!” Xander contended vehemently.

Spike seemed to deflate then, like a slashed tire losing air. His legs gave way and he sunk slowly to the blood-stained floor onto his knees before the brunette. The vampire buried his face in his hands as sobs began to ripple through him like anguished earthquakes.

Xander knelt down next to him. “What does it mean?” he asked again, more softly.

Spike shook his head in denial, not that he didn’t know, but that he didn’t _want_ to know.

“Spike? What does ‘pickles’ mean?” Xander insisted gently.

“Let ‘er go,” the vampire answered finally, his voice barely audible, quavering with grief. “It means let ‘er go.”

“And the promise?” Xander prodded.

Spike continued to shake his head, blood dripping from his wrist and the bullet wound, tears streaming down his face in a torrent of tortured grief.

The morning of his chip-ecotmy flashed in his mind, transporting him back in time …

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Spike, can we talk a minute?” Buffy asked after she’d gotten dressed that morning.

“’Course, pet. Want t’ tell me again how good I make ya feel?” he teased from the bed. “Could show ya again if your memory’s foggy.”

Buffy smiled but shook her head, pulling the chair up next to the bed to face him. “Rain check on that. I need to talk to you about the chip and… and why I insisted on Riley getting it out of you.”

Spike quirked brow at her, and sat up on the edge of the bed to face her directly, suddenly serious. “Ya said it was the ‘right thing to do’, got a sliver of a soul or whatnot and….”

“I know,” Buffy cut him off. “And that’s true, but there’s more,” she admitted. “There’s something coming, something big. I can feel it. I don’t know what yet, but… it’s gonna take both of us to defeat it, Spike. And… well, I’m not sure we’ll both—” Buffy’s throat tightened up and tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked frantically, willing them not to fall as she cleared the emotion from her windpipe.

“I’m not sure we’ll both make it,” she finished, failing to keep her tears at bay.

Spike looked at her, suddenly grave, his blue eyes boring into her with uncomfortable intensity. “Which one is it, then?”

Buffy shook her head. “I don’t know, and maybe I’m wrong. It’s just this feeling, a spidey-sense and… well, I’ve kinda learned to listen to them. They’re not often wrong.”

“But sometimes?” Spike prodded.

Buffy nodded and gave him a watery smile. “Sometimes.”

“Then this will be that time,” Spike insisted, as if saying it would make it so.

Buffy nodded again, unwilling to disagree, hoping he was right. “The thing is, Spike, I need another promise from you.”

“Anything, luv, you know that,” he agreed immediately.

“If it’s me, don’t try to save me. Spike, let me go. Please, please don’t…” Buffy’s voice broke, and her tears fell harder, completely out of her control now.

“Don’t turn you into a monster,” Spike finished softly, looking down. “Like me.”

“Not like you, Spike!” Buffy rallied, standing up suddenly and tipping the chair over backwards. She began pacing agitatedly back and forth across the small space by the bed. “Like Dru, like Angelus, like Darla, like the million other piles of dust in that cemetery! I just can’t… I can’t do it. I can’t be that. Please promise me you won’t.”

Spike clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, his hands curled into fists at his sides, his whole body rigid with too many emotions to even begin to sort them out and name them.

“Promise me,” she asked again in a throaty whisper, stopping her pacing and standing in front of him. She laid her palm gently on his cheek, imploring. “Promise.”

Spike swallowed hard and opened his eyes to meet hers. “Only if you promise t’ not leave me. Till the end of the world. Can’t do this without you, Buffy. I bloody can’t.”

Buffy bit her bottom lip, closing her eyes against the renewed flood of tears that surfaced.

She blinked her eyes open, and swallowed again, trying to find her voice, then conceded, “I can only promise to try, Spike. I can promise to fight, to … to not walk into the light if I have a choice.

“I’ll stay forever, if I can,” she promised huskily.

Tears sprang to Spike’s eyes, turning her into a shimmering angel of light and goodness in front of him. They sat in a deafening silence for what seemed a lifetime before Spike finally nodded.

“I promise.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Spike?” Xander prompted after a moment. “What was the promise?”

Spike wiped his eyes brusquely and clenched his jaw, looking up at the brunette. “T’ kill her murderer,” he growled, rising back to his feet.

Xander rose also, looking at the vampire worriedly. “What will you do?”

“Tear his bloody heart out and feed it to him,” Spike answered angrily, glaring at the boy, daring him to try and stop him. “Like he did mine.”

Xander nodded solemnly. “Could you start with his guts … for me?”

Spike looked through the window at Buffy’s silent, unmoving, shrouded body. His light. His love. His heart. His soul. His everything. Gone. Forever lost to him.

No more smiles. No more rambling monologues. No more bad puns. No more ‘I love you’s’ as she fell asleep in his arms. No more screams of rapture. No more soft kisses in the dark. No more dances. The music had stopped. All the music in the entire universe had stopped.

In one instant his world was shattered into shards of razor-sharp grief, casting him into purgatory, on his way straight to hell.

Spike felt something inside him burst, like a damn filled to overflowing by a torrential monsoon of sorrow. The darkness inside him rejoiced, freed from its bonds, careening off the cavern walls of his battered soul and flooding it with inky blackness. The light guttered and wavered within, and his soul relinquished the light once again to the evil borne of the overwhelming hatred and grief that filled him.

His eyes shifted back to the boy, though all Spike could see was the darkness – black and inky and filled with pure hatred.

“Be my pleasure,” Spike snarled hoarsely.

“Make it hurt … _a lot_ ,” Xander rasped back, his voice thick with pain and grief.

“Wouldn’t ‘ave it any other way,” Spike assured him, before turning on his heel and striding toward the back of the hospital and the sewer entrance he knew was there.

The shattered vampire strode deliberately into the deepest darkness, into hell, with his demon firmly at the helm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh! What now???
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulous -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally spectacular! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks it!


	39. Back in Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike goes looking for Warren … and finds him.

 

Spike leapt effortlessly up onto the bar at Willy’s, the local demon hangout, fueled by pure adrenaline and unrestrained darkness. His injuries – the bullet wound in his chest, lacerated wrist, his burned hand, and scorched back – were little more than a mosquito buzzing near his ear, a minor annoyance. He couldn’t feel anything but pure, unadulterated hatred. Nothing would stop him until he had his vengeance.

“Listen up! I’m callin’ in all my markers!” he announced to the patrons at large. The chatter in the bar lessened then grew completely silent as all eyes and ears turned to him.

“Anyone who brings me a human named Warren Mears gets their debt cleared and a sparkly bobble or two in reward.

“Wanker’s ‘bout yea high,” Spike held his hand up about even with the top of his own head. “Short, brown hair, nose like a Durante demon. Been in jail, so smells like desperation and bland food. Builds robots. Thinks he’s evil. He don’t know evil... _yet_. Likes t’ say he’s in charge of a club o’ gits called ‘The Trio.’”

“Is that the one who shot the Slayer?” a male vampire at the bar asked, looking up at Spike. The vamp looked like a preppy straight out of the 80s wearing a white, Lacoste polo shirt with the collar turned up and khaki-colored chinos. To complete the stereotype, he had a pink sweater draped over is shoulders and tied casually in the front. There was not a single short, brown hair on his head that was out of place or a speck of dirt on his white shirt. He was drinking a Cape Codder.

Spike turned a sharp, blue gaze down on the vamp. “Yeah, that’s the one. You know ‘im?”

“I’ve seen him,” the vamp acknowledged. “He was just in here a little while ago, offering to buy everyone drinks to celebrate. Said he’d killed the Slayer.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “And did you partake in the merriments, then?”

The preppy vamp’s yellow eyes went wide as he held his hands up in surrender. “OMG! No! We all know she’s your girl, Spike! We told him you and the Slayer would be coming for him. Slayers aren’t that easy to kill – especially that one! – and they heal fast, ya know? Figured it wouldn’t be long. He didn’t seem to know you were … errr … _with_ the Slayer. Tried to tell us it was some double-agent ploy you had going on. What a lamebrain. Think he soiled his pants a little before he ran outta here.”

“Good, then it won’t be hard for ya to follow the scent, will it?” Spike suggested, lifting his penetrating gaze to the room at large.

“Bring him to my crypt. NOW!” he roared at them all, his demon rising back to the surface in response to the throbbing fury running through him.

Nearly everyone in the bar jumped up at once at his demand, toppling over chairs, tables, and drinks in their haste to comply.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked the vamp who had given him the information. He was the only one in the bar who hadn’t moved.

“Sun’s still up and I haven’t finished my drink,” the vamp explained with a shrug, taking another sip of his Codder.

Spike jumped down onto the floor behind him, grabbed the back of the vamp’s pristine, preppy Polo shirt and hauled him bodily toward the door. “It’s nearly sundown. Grow a bloody pair and get that bastard for me or I’ll dust ya myself!” Spike threatened, shoving the vamp out into the street, directly through a shaft of early evening sunlight.

The vampire screamed and rolled into the shadows, patting frantically at his burning, despoiled shirt, yanking the sweater off and using it to smother the scorches on his clothes and skin. “You’re sick to the max, man! Fucking epically twisted!”

Spike growled and stepped out into the stream of deadly light, letting it burn and blister his skin. He threw his head back and laughed in guttural, malevolent, painful exultance as his face, neck, and hands blistered and his body began to smoke. In the split second before he would’ve burst into flames he took another step out of the deadly ray and into the shadows next to the other vamp, smoke still billowing from his ravaged body.

The preppy looked at him with wide, frightened, disbelieving eyes, scrabbling back away from his crazed elder. “There is something tragically wrong with you, dude.”

“Yeah, I’m a bloody vampire,” Spike snarled at him. The blond was behind the trembling prep-school-wanna-be demon in an instant, hauling him back up to his feet. “Get. The. Fucking. Human,” Spike growled at him, shoving him down the street. “NOW.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“SPIKE! WE GOT HIM! SPIKE!” a chorus of voices flooded down into the cavern below Spike’s crypt some time later.

Spike looked up from his task and smiled wickedly, his blackened, burned face splitting open and oozing blood from the cracks with the gesture. Spike practically flew up the ladder to the main crypt, still holding the short, double-edged dagger he’d been sharpening.

“Brilliant, boys,” he congratulated the various demons surrounding the human. “Knew I could count on you.”

A small, tinkling sound came from the crowd as the petite soap demon cleared her throat and stepped from behind the larger ones.

Spike saw her and tilted his head in acknowledgement. “And ladies,” he added, bowing gallantly.

“Any trouble, then?” he wondered, making mental notes of all the demons who were there. There were seven of them, including the trembling, nancy-boy vampire he’d shoved into the ray of sun. His clothes were no longer pristine or preppy-looking, nor was his hair.

Ariel spoke, stepping forward. “He has tricks and magics,” she warned Spike. “Jalon, Duggo, and Lucrezia were killed. Micheletto was injured, but should recover.”

Spike looked at the nerd, who looked only a little less beat up than the last time Spike had seen him – after he’d tortured information out of him. “Magics, is it? Got some magic myself,” he remarked, sliding the razor-sharp blade slowly down the big brunette’s cheek.

Blood welled in the blade’s path, searing pain slithered down Warren’s cheek as his skin split beneath the blade. The prisoner moaned and jerked back, trying to get away, but he was held too tightly by the vampires and demons around him. His hands and feet were bound, and a gag had been tied tightly around his mouth to keep him from speaking.

“Gonna enjoy makin’ magic with you for a very, _very_ long time,” Spike purred, pulling the knife away and licking the blood from it in a slow, sensuous motion.

Warren tried to scream or talk, it was hard to tell, still jerking and writhing against his captors, but to little effect.

“Oh yeah, screaming will be part of the curriculum,” Spike assured him maliciously. “Lots of delicious screaming.”

Spike turned his attention back to the group who had captured the human. “Be a pet and drop him down the hole for me,” he requested of no one in particular.

The group as a whole, except for Ariel, dragged the struggling man to the trapdoor and simply dropped him the ten or so feet to the floor below. Warren landed with a loud thud and a muffled scream of pain. After that all that could be heard were his vain attempts to get free of his bonds.

Spike pulled a handful of sparkling jewels from his pocket and gave each demon one of their choosing, also acknowledging any debts or favors they owed him to be fulfilled.

Finally, he turned to the little soap demon, giving her her choice of gems. After that he dropped the rest of the jewels, about twelve in all, into her palm. “Duggo and Lucrezia had families, yeah?  You’ll pass these along to them for me? And one for Micheletto.”

The little demon bowed her head and curtsied regally, sending a rainbow of sparkling bubbles floating up from her hair with the motion. “It shall be done.”

She looked back up at him then, her rippling aquamarine eyes shimmering even more than normal. “We’re sorry for your loss, Spike. She was … special. She could see what many can’t, what they won’t.”

Spike nodded curtly, refusing to let his grief surface, choosing instead to embrace only his fury and anger. “Ta, ever so, pet. She’ll have her vengeance, I bloody promise that.”

Ariel gave him a bleak smile and nodded before turning to follow the others out of the crypt, leaving Spike alone with the murdering bastard that had killed his light.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike dropped down into the lower level of his crypt without using the ladder, his duster billowing out behind him like a cape. But this was no Superman’s cape tonight; it was the shroud of the Grim Reaper come to call. 

The vampire landed on his feet lightly, just inches from Warren’s face, making the nerd squirm back in fear.

“Nowhere t’ run, nowhere t’ hide,” Spike chided, yanking the terrified man to his feet by the rope binding his wrists.

Warren gasped against the gag from the pain, trying to put no weight on his right leg, which had been broken in his fall.

“Oh, sorry … does that hurt?” Spike asked with mock compassion, kicking his boot at the break in the large man’s lower leg.

Warren screamed behind the gag, tears welling in his eyes and spilling down his cheeks in rivers of agony, and Spike smirked. “Now, that hits the spot. Like treacle tart on bloody Christmas, that is. I’ll ‘ave more o’ that, if you please,” he taunted, roughly dragging Warren to the far wall as the man continued to scream in pain behind the gag, dragging his broken leg as he tried to keep weight off it.

The handcuffs and manacles that Buffy and Spike had used in their sex games had been repurposed into more sinister functionality. They were each attached to large eye-bolts that had been drilled into the solid rock of the wall. By hand. By Spike while he had waited for his prey to be brought to him.

Spike jerked the rope binding Warren’s wrists off roughly, leaving bruises and scrapes on the man’s hands and wrists, and drawing more gagged protests from his prisoner. Spike raised Warren’s right arm and locked his wrist in a handcuff, then pulled his left over to reach the other. It left the large brunette just barely touching the floor with his toes, his arms stretched out and up from his body.

“Might not even need the others,” Spike observed, stepping back to survey his work. Then he shrugged. “Hate t’ waste ‘em though. Went to all that trouble getting ‘em ready for ya.”

Spike stepped back up to the trembling human and pulled his left leg out to snap into the manacle on that side, then did the same with his broken right, eliciting more gagged screams and shuddering sobs from the murderer.

The vampire stepped back again and nodded, satisfied with the ‘X’ shape in which his quarry now hung. “Haven’t made art like this in an age,” he remarked casually, picking up the razor-sharp short dagger again. “Wonder if I’ve still got a knack for it. Angelus was the master, o’ course … but I picked up a trick or two over the years. Never was much for pre-show like the incredible git, but I made some special exceptions … and you bloody qualify.”

Spike placed the dagger near Warren’s cheek again, making the man convulse in fear. “Does it make ya tingly knowing yer all special-like?” Spike purred dangerously near his prisoner’s ear.

Sweat mingled with tears and coursed from the brunette’s chin in rivers as Warren clamped his eyes closed against the nightmare he’d been cast into … the nightmare he’d _cast himself_ into. His body shivered uncontrollably, rippling with terror and already consumed with pain.

Spike chuckled and slid the dagger beneath the gag, cutting it neatly and letting the fabric fall from Warren’s mouth. “No good if I can’t actually hear ya scream,” Spike explained patiently.

Warren’s eyes flashed open, hope blossoming in his chest, sending pain-numbing adrenaline coursing through him. He had a chance! He could get out of this just like he’d gotten out of every other pinch he’d ever gotten into, with his wiles and cunning and Machiavellian resourcefulness.

“Spike! You don’t have to do this! I can pay you, man! I’ve got loads of money! I can set you up for life!” Warren offered eagerly. “No matter how long that is!”

“Is that so?” Spike asked, looking thoughtful as he rolled the handle of the blade back and forth in his fingers.

“Yes! And I can … I can make you another sex bot or two! Just like Buffy, only, you know … more _amenable_ to all your kinks. I’d never actually heard of some of those before you had me put them in that first one. You are one sick dude! Mad respect, man!”

Spike nodded, apparently considering this generous offer. “What if I want three bots?”

Warren nodded earnestly. “Sure! As many as you want! Five! Ten! You could have a different one for each day of the year! I know they could fuck you better than that stuck-up bitch of a Slayer, and be less mouthy, too! Hell, I might just make one for myself. Have her in a little sexy maid outfit, at my beck and call, taking it up the ass and cooking dinner at the same time, all the while begging like a little cunt, ‘May I have more, please, daddy?’”

Spike raised his brows in interest. “That’s quite an offer, mate. Can ya make one that has a cherry that I can pop every time I fuck her?”

Warren nodded vigorously. “Dude! I hadn’t even thought of that! I can totally do that! Oh man! It’s like we’re brothers or something, you and me! Out of the same cloth! We could rule the world together! Have anything we want, _anyone_ we want. You work with me and I’ll lay the world, and every little blonde whore in it, at your feet!”

Spike nodded again, considering. “And, what if I wanted to be the one in charge, and you work for me?”

“Oh, man … well, I mean, yeah, totally doable. It’s just that I’ve got mad leadership skills, but if you want to give it a shot, sure, we can do that.”

Spike smiled at him, his fangs glistening in the candlelight, opening more cracks on his charred face. “What if I bugger you up the ass with a cattle prod while you make me dinner? Would ya beg me for more? Or just scream like a little girl?”

Warren blanched, jerking his head back until it banged against the stone behind him.

“Hmmm? Cat got yer tongue? I guess we’ll find out, then, shall we?” Spike purred smoothly as he began flipping buttons off the large man’s shirt with the tip of his blade.

“Powers of high, listen to my plea,” Warren began chanting in earnest. “Three aspects of the Divine I invoke thee. This magic time, this magic hour. I ask you to lend me your power. Hear my—”

Spike wrapped his fingers bruisingly around the conjurer’s throat, cutting off his words but careful not to break his neck or crush his windpipe, that would be too good for him. “Not on the menu, mate,” Spike informed him coolly, squeezing his throat until Warren’s tongue stuck out of his mouth, his face turning red, then blue, then a deep puce, eyes bulging, threatening to pop out of their sockets.

“Now, there’s a good lad,” Spike cajoled, lifting the blade up with his other hand and neatly slicing Warren’s tongue down the middle. Warren tried to scream, but had no breath. His stomach convulsed in pain and shock as blood spurted everywhere, running down the prisoner’s body in a river of red gore. 

“Hard t’ conjure with a forked tongue, innit? Can still scream though,” Spike told him calmly, releasing him and stepping back. “I got a few ‘mad skills’ myself, mate. Plan on showin’ them all to you in good time.”

Warren gagged and choked. Bile that had risen up and been damned against his closed throat flooded his mouth, burning his already searing tongue with yellow acid. Blood and bile splattered everywhere, running down his chin, as the two ends of his tongue flapped loosely, out of his control. And then the big man passed out, his body hanging like a ragdoll from the chains, his head lolling forward as if his neck were broken.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Spike groaned. “Pass out at the first sight o’ blood? What kinda evil villain are you, anyway!?” he demanded of the unconscious man. “Bugger.”

“Well, that’s fun of the non-fun variety. Really rude of him to pass out like that.”

Spike whirled, his eyes wide, to come face to face with … “Buffy?”

Buffy smiled and walked closer to Warren to examine the damage. “Looks like you’re back in black, baby. It always was the best color for you.”

She turned bright, shimmering green eyes to the vampire. “I knew you’d avenge me. I tried to stay, I really did. I tried to keep my promise, Spike. I’m sorry.”

Spike took a shocked, tentative step forward, but Buffy backed away, holding up a hand to stop him.

“I can’t stay too long,” she told him, looking over her shoulder as if waiting for a bus to arrive. “I just wanted to remind you that I love you and I know you’ll make me proud.”

“Buffy, please … don’t go. Can we … is there a way… please, pet … stay,” he stammered.

Buffy shook her head. “Not this time. Death by human hands. Doesn’t qualify for the frequent-dying bonus miles.”

“But even … like this,” he pleaded, taking another step forward. “Even if I can’t touch you… Buffy … I need you so bloody much. I love you more than life. Please, luv … _please_ ,” he begged, his voice cracking with emotion.

Buffy gave him a sad smile, tears welling in her eyes and sliding slowly down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Spike. I really do love you, baby.” Buffy looked back at Warren, who was starting to come back around. “I know you’ll give him everything he deserves before you send him to hell. For me.”

She turned back to Spike then, looking heartbroken, her tears flowing in rivers of pain down her cheeks. She reached out to touch him, but in the moment before her hand reached his cheek, she was gone. Vanished. Lost. Again.

Spike collapsed down hard on the floor on his ass, his knees unable to hold him upright another second. “Buffy … come back to me, please,” he begged, looking up at the ceiling, up to heaven where he knew she’d gone. “Buffy! Please! I love you, I need you so bloody much! _Please_!!!!!”

But nothing happened, she didn’t return. He was alone again. Just him and the murdering bastard that took her from him.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Warren’s clothes lay in tattered heaps on the floor beneath him, soaking up the blood that ran in rivulets down his body and dripped to pool in puddles of excruciating pain beneath him.

“Haven’t actually used these in the last century,” Spike explained to Warren casually, holding up four rust-stained – or was that blood? – railroad spikes. “I recall they were quite the party favor in London … all the blithering prats were just dying t’ have one back in the day.”

Warren spluttered and coughed, his eyes rolling around wildly in their sockets, blood still pouring from his split tongue. He hung limply from the chains around his wrists, the metal digging into his flesh agonizingly. His shoulders felt like a thousand fiery daggers were stabbing into the sockets as they bore his full weight. His broken leg was grotesquely swollen and blackened from his knee to his ankle, and it throbbed with the pain of a thousand baseball bats slamming into it with every beat of his heart.

But that was just the blank canvas, Spike had just begun making his art.

“What? Not even a chuckle?” Spike asked mockingly. “That’s bloody funny … ‘dying t’ have one’ … get it?”

Warren grunted and his head lolled forward, his chin hitting his chest. Spike grabbed a handful of bloody, sweaty, greasy hair and jerked his head back up. “None o’ that!” he growled. “I watched her die! You don’t get t’ shut your eyes now!”

Spike drew back and slammed one of the spikes into Warren’s hip, embedding it to the head in his soft flesh and driving the tip into his pelvic bone, splintering the bone with an explosion of white-hot agony  inside his body.

Warren’s body jerked in paroxysms of pain and his scream rattled glasses on the bar before his eyes rolled back into his skull and he passed out. 

More vengeful blood swelled the growing puddle of agony on the floor.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“I have to say, Spike. I really expected better from you. I’m very disappointed.”

Spike turned from his work to come face to face with Joyce Summers. A rather upset-looking Joyce, at that, judging by her scowl and crossed arms.

“Joyce, I … I tried, I bloody tried! I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t save her,” he beseeched Buffy’s mother, moving away from Warren toward the apparition.

“Well, that’s clear,” she rebuked him. “I hope you’re planning on getting my baby justice, at least.”

Spike turned halfway back towards Warren, waving a blood-stained hand out toward the man, then looked back at Joyce.

“I will. I swear, I will,” Spike declared earnestly. “Every drop of blood will be shed for her, every scream in his soul will be for her, every scrap of torn flesh. It’s all for Buffy.”

Joyce nodded, taking a step closer to the bound man, carefully stepping around Spike. “What are these for?” she asked, pointing to blood-soaked carvings of an ‘X’ inside a circle done on the man’s chest and abdomen.

Spike smiled maliciously. “Safe zones, for now. That’s the final act of the play.”

Joyce raised her brows, looking back at Spike. “Heart and bowels?” She nodded thoughtfully, approving. “Make sure it hurts. A lot,” she demanded. “For my baby girl.”

“I promise. With all my heart,” Spike assured her before she, too, vanished.

“No tha I mine,” Warren spoke painfully to Spike, enunciating from the back of his throat, trying not to use his tongue at all. “Bu who are you talkin to? Yer lothing it, man.”

“Mind yer Ps and Qs!” Spike snapped at him, taking two long strides to be in the big man’s face once again. Spike grabbed the brunette’s hair and jerked his head up, banging it against the stone at his back. “When I want your opinion, I’ll bloody cut it outta ya!”

“Jus thayin,” Warren muttered, before losing consciousness again.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Warren moaned and twitched as Spike turned his body into a work of gory blood art, carving deep gashes and glyphs into every square inch of his skin from head to toe. He peeled back flaps of skin to create three-dimensional pictographs and intricate designs. He burned the flesh to seal the cuts, slow the bleeding, and even to add depth and color to his creations.  

The human was beyond screams, which was a rotten shame, but that didn’t stop Spike from wanting to create a blindingly horrific masterpiece of pain before destroying it utterly.

Blood dripped in a pitter-pat rhythm onto the clothes and carpet beneath the murderer’s feet, pooling into a puddle of licentious vengeance. Every drop for Buffy. Every scream, every moan, every tear and whimper, for Buffy.

“You always were the most delicious artist with blood, my sweet William, but this is the finest by far,” Dru purred near his left elbow, twirling away in layers of black and red lace before he could turn. “You make the devils dance in the ashen embers and the angels weep tears of wine.”

Spike looked up from his work, no longer startled by the spectral visits. He was starting to think the murdering bastard was right. He was losing it. But it didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered now but exacting the maximum pain and suffering on the monster that stole Buffy from him.

“Red or white?” he wondered indifferently, turning from his work to face his sire.

“Sangria!” Dru giggled, stopping mid-twirl to face him with dark, wide eyes that danced in amusement.

Spike quirked a brow at her. “That sounds like a pun not even Buffy would make, luv,” he remarked dryly.

Dru scowled at him. “You dare speak that name to me?!”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I dare, ya barmy bint.”

Dru pouted, her lower lip protruding impishly. “Wasn’t it I who first tasted your tender heart of curry spice and wove a dark tapestry of wicked magnificence for your frock? Aren’t I your forever love, your dark fairy-plum princess?”

Spike pursed his lips together. “Were, until you left me for that bloody chaos demon.”

Spike sighed and turned back to the carving he was working on on Warren’s chest. “Whaddya want, Dru?”

“I felt you return to my womb, my deep, dark, evil boy,” she replied, laying her hands over her stomach and dancing closer to him, swaying to music only she could hear. “Felt you burst again from my loins – the pain! the rapture!” she exclaimed, flinging her arms out and her head back as she spun around in a wild pirouette, her long, dark hair flying out as she twirled. “Flowing like black currant fire, cracking the tea cups and spoiling the banquet. It stained the good linen. Shhhh! Daddy will be displeased,” she revealed, stopping to face Spike.

“Oh, demon enough for ya now, am I?” he snarled. “And _daddy_ can kiss my sweet arse.”

“Daddy will have you over his knee! Smashing and bashing! Feasting on sweet, little charms and sipping golden apples, all plump and juicy!”  

“Daddy’ll have a stake up his bloody arse is what he’ll have,” Spike grumbled, slicing a deep, curved line into Warren’s hairy chest. Blood oozed from the wound, barely flowing now, so low was he on the life-giving liquid. “Bugger off, Dru. Got work t’ do.”

“The lark is hushed, my Spike … its glittering heart’s been ripped out, still beating. Her name shall never spill ‘twixt its wee beak again. She was an imposter, my dark knight, a sun flaring into life and then gone in a shower of glitter and frilly ribbons.  I am your eternity, your molten core of fire and brimstone and honied blackbird pudding.

“We are what dances between the suns where the pixies dare not tread, my Spike. Infinite darkness. Eternal life.”

Spike turned around and glowered at her. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”  

Dru pouted again as he turned back to his work, her bottom lip sticking out like a shelf. “You are my black rose, sweet and tart and wicked. I’ll wait for you in the garden, _snip, snip, snipping_ off the petals until only the thorn remains.”

Spike rolled his eyes and looked back at her, blood dripping from his hands. “Careful what ya snip, Morticia. Got some bits that might not grow back properly.”

“Grrr … rawrrrr … grrrr-ufff!” she growled, snapping her teeth at him, before she was gone in a flash of light.

Spike shook his head, glowering, as he put the final touches on the carving of the lark in Warren’s flesh.

“Bloody lark’s hushed alright,” he muttered. “And burned t’ ashes.”

Spike sighed deeply, exhaustion suddenly flowing over him like a drowning wave of bone-deep fatigue. His chest hurt where he’d been shot, and the burned flesh of his face and hands were cracked and raw – but that physical pain was nothing compared to the shattered pieces of his heart that stabbed into him with every thought, every memory, every tear.

Warren’s screams had not healed him, nor had his tears, or his blood. They had not softened Spike’s brutal crash against the jagged rocks, they had not stopped the agony that pulsed like cold, icy daggers into every cell of his body, they had not lifted the oppressive shroud of anguished misery from his shoulders. Nothing was helping.

He walked over to the bar and downed the last half of the whiskey bottle in one long swallow, letting it burn him to his core. It could never burn him like Buffy had. She burned like sunbeams, right to his heart. She’d never burn him again.

Never …

_Buffy_ …

His eyes drooped then, and he stumbled toward his bed. The final touches on his masterpiece would have to wait a bit longer, oblivion was tugging the vampire under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Spike loosing it, as Warren suggested? Just what is going on with all those visitors? What will happen when the Scoobs find Warren, or Warren's mutilated body? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously remarkable -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally brilliant! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks it!


	40. Birthday Candles and Cigarettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willow, Tara, and Dawn show up at the hospital.

****

 

* * *

 

**At the hospital earlier.**

Xander rose, looking at Spike worriedly. “What will you do?”

“Tear his bloody heart out and feed it to him,” Spike answered angrily, glaring at the boy, daring him to try and stop him. “Like he did mine.”

Xander nodded solemnly. “Could you start with his guts … for me?”

“Be my pleasure,” Spike snarled hoarsely.

“Make it hurt … a lot,” Xander rasped back, his voice thick with pain and grief.

“Wouldn’t ‘ave it any other way,” Spike assured him, before turning on his heel and striding toward the back of the hospital and the sewer entrance he knew was there.

Spike had only just turned the corner and was out of sight when Tara and Willow came rushing into the emergency room, Dawn in tow.

“Xander! How’s Buffy!?” Willow called, seeing him and hurrying over to where he stood holding vigil over the body of the Slayer.

Xander turned bleak, forsaken eyes on the witches, and Willow jerked to a halt as if physically slapped.

“No, no … no!” Will screamed, running past him into the small, now empty room. The only thing left there was the shrouded, still body of her best friend.

“How long?” she demanded as Xander, Tara, and Dawn followed her inside.

Xander shook his head. He honestly didn’t know.

“HOW LONG?!” she repeated, shaking him physically.

“Just … a minute or three?” he guessed.

Willow turned to Buffy, pulling the shroud back. The Slayer was still hooked up to all the wires, tubes, and equipment, but it had all been turned off. The electric shock paddles still sat in their place near the table.

Willow took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting it out slowly, focusing.

“W-WILLOW! NO!” Tara demanded, shaking her girlfriend and breaking her concentration. “You c-can’t!”

“I can! I will!” Willow insisted, yanking free of her girlfriend.

“N-no! Not you … I-I w-will,” Tara persisted. “I need c-candles! As many as you can f-find! Hurry!”

They all looked at her in bewilderment a moment, then all three of the others were in motion, out the door and in search of candles.

Within a minute, Xander had returned with a couple of boxes of birthday candles from the breakroom and Willow had found a small votive in the ladies’ restroom. Dawn returned with two disposable lighters and a pack of cigarettes.

Tara shook her head at the woeful assortment, but there was no choice. “L-Light them, put them around her on the f-floor! Hurry!”

As soon as the candles and cigarettes were burning, Tara began chanting slowly, her hand resting on the bullet wound on Buffy’s chest. “Aceso. G-Goddess hear my plea, magic mend while the c-candle burns, injury will mend, and health will return, harm to n-none, my will be done. So m-mote it be.”

The candles flickered slightly, but Buffy remained motionless, unbreathing.

“I d-don’t have enough p-power!” Tara cried, reaching her other hand out to Willow.

Willow took it, holding tight, and Tara began her chant again. She’d not too long ago found this incantation while searching for a powerful healing spell for Spike after the Suvolte battle. She hadn’t used it then, it ended up not being needed, but it was still clear in her mind. Of course, there were supposed to be more candles, white candles for the purity of healing, black candles to help absorb the pain, and a cleansing ceremony before, but there was no time for any of that now.

Tara hadn’t even thought of performing the spell back at the house. Because of her childhood, with a father and brother who saw magic as the mark of a demon, it had never been her first response to any given situation. And then, with the problems Willow had gone through and how it had ended their relationship some months before, it was even further out of her mind now that they were back together. Add to that the panic, trying to nervously stutter through calling 9-1-1, and an overwrought Spike, and it just never came to her mind. It hadn’t even occurred to her here until she realized what Willow was about to do.

As Tara completed the chant again, the candles flickered, and the witch felt movement beneath her palm. When she lifted her hand, the bullet was laying on Buffy’s chest, free of her body. Tara flicked it aside and began again in earnest, but still Buffy didn’t stir.

“Form a circle around her! Everyone join hands!” Willow instructed urgently.

Xander guided a dazed and sobbing Dawn around the gurney and clasped her hand, Willow taking the other. Xander put his other, blood-stained hand over Tara’s on Buffy’s chest, completing the circle.

Once again Tara chanted, almost screaming the incantation, no trace of a stutter in her determined voice. “Aceso!! Goddess, I beg you! Hear my plea! Magic mend while the candle burns! Injury will mend, and health will return! Harm to none, my will be done! So mote it be!”

All the candle flames fluttered, then surged high and bright, and then went out as a magical wind whipped through the small room, swirling with mystical power. The lit cigarettes laying on the floor suddenly burned down to embers, leaving nothing but spots of ash on the tile next to the melted, extinguished candles.

Buffy’s body jerked and bowed on the table, convulsing as if being shocked by the defibrillators as the doctors had done earlier. At the same moment, the circle of friends and family standing around her were all hurtled back by an unseen force, sent crashing into the walls of the small room with painful thuds against the drywall.

And then Buffy coughed, wet and strangled. Blood came up from her lungs as she fought for air, choking on the liquid in her lungs and airways.

“HELP! SOMEBODY! HELP!” Xander screamed, scrambling to his feet. He slammed the door of the room open and kept yelling frantically, trying to get someone’s attention. “SHE’S ALIVE! HELP HER!”

Nurses again came running, doctors were paged, the machines turned back on, and the frantic race to save a life began again. But this time the damaged arteries and blood vessels, which had been hemorrhaging uncontrollably into her lungs, had been sealed, the bullet removed. There was no new blood leaking into Buffy’s lungs, but she was still in danger of drowning – again – on what was there already.

Tara sat slumped against the wall, her energy drained. Willow and Dawn helped her to her feet and out of the room, making way for the doctors and nurses. The four magical saviors stood at the window to watch, worry and trepidation still creasing their features. Had they been in time? It hadn’t been a resurrection spell, it had been a healing spell – and it hadn’t really been done with all the proper accoutrements. If Buffy’s brain had been without oxygen for too long.…

No one voiced that as they watched and waited and prayed.

Finally, one of the doctors came out of the room, peeling off her blood-stained gown and gloves.

“Is she going to be alright?” Willow asked frantically.

The doctor looked at the clock. It was four-fifteen. “I don’t know. I didn’t notice the time when … when she …” The doctor hesitated, searching for words, still disbelieving, “… spontaneously _revived_. It’s been twenty minutes now since she … stopped breathing.”

“T-that’s a long time,” Tara observed, still leaning on her lover for support. “B-but you’ve been working a while. M-Maybe … it wasn’t t-too long?”

None of the others had noticed the time either. It hadn’t been foremost in their minds at the time.

The doctor shook her head. “I don’t know. Only time will tell. She’s unconscious, but breathing on her own. We’ll just have to see if she wakes up in the next few hours. If not, we’ll run more tests and see.”

The four of them nodded their understanding, solemn and worried.

“Can we go in?” Dawn asked, her eyes bloodshot and swollen from crying.

The doctor nodded. “Just try to stay quiet, no loud noises or anything. She needs to rest and heal now, if she can.”

They all nodded again and went into the room. An orderly was just finishing up the job of cleaning up the floor, removing all the dropped bloody wads of gauze, gloves, and … melted wax? She frowned at that, but put them in the biological hazard bag with everything else before exiting the room.

Dawn hurried over to her sister’s prone form, the soft, ‘beep, beep, beep,’ of the heart monitor confirming Buffy’s status among the living once again – well, her body, anyway. The girl took Buffy’s hand in hers and leaned in very close to her sister’s ear before speaking softly through her tears.

“I love you, Buffy. I know I’m not the best sister in the world, but please … don’t leave me. Please be okay. I can’t lose you again. Please, _please_ just be okay.

“I need you. We all need you. We all love you. Please wake up,” Dawn entreated her desperately, but there was no response, no flicker or twitch, from the Slayer.

“She’ll be okay,” Dawn said softly, standing back up and looking at the others through her shimmering tears, still holding Buffy’s hand. “It’s Buffy, she can heal. Even if it was a little longer than a normal person could go, it’s Buffy. You revived her before, right, Xan?”

Xander nodded solemnly.

“How long had she been dead then?” Dawn wondered.

Xander shook his head. “I’m not sure, but not long I don’t think. But it’s Buffy, you guys.”

The other three nodded their agreement. It was Buffy. She could heal. She had to. She just had to. It was their only hope.

“Where’s Spike?” Dawn asked after a few moments, suddenly realizing that he was missing from the gathered vigil. “I thought Willow said he came to the hospital with you?”

Xander cleared his throat. “He did, he was pretty upset about ….” Xander’s voice trailed off and he waved a hand at Buffy. “He needed some space … and probably lots of … um … whiskey.”

“We need to tell him!” Dawn insisted, suddenly animated, but not dropping her grip on Buffy’s hand.

“No, Dawnie, we really shouldn’t,” Willow advised her. “Not until … we know. It would only make it worse to get his hopes up and then.…” Willow bit her lip as she looked down at Buffy sadly.  “We don’t know what he’d do if … something’s wrong. He’s chip-less.”

Dawn frowned at the witch. “You’re afraid Spike would … what? Hurt us? He would never do that. Didn’t you hear Buffy? He has a soul.”

Willow sighed, feeling the bruise spread across her back from Spike throwing her against the cabinets earlier. “I know, but … even people with souls can be unpredictable. Spike’s really … passionate and vampire-strong, and if he gets upset he might not even realize what he’s doing.”

“I’ll call Anya and have her look for him. If she finds him she can send him back,” Xander offered as a compromise.

Dawn was still unhappy, but nodded, giving Willow a glower of resentment.

Xander gave Willow a meaningful look as he passed, heading for the door.

“She’ll be okay, Dawnie. I prom—” Willow stopped mid-word. “I’m sure of it,” she amended. “Then, when she wakes up, if Spike’s still not here, we’ll all go find him, okay?

“I’m just gonna … go get some coffee and sodas for everyone. We could be here a while.”

Dawn watched the red witch hurry to follow Xander from the room. “Well, that was subtle. As in ‘not,’” the teen observed, watching through the room’s windows as the two old friends talked earnestly outside in the hallway.

“What do you think that’s about?” the girl asked Tara, who had finally gotten most of her strength back, though she was still a bit woozy from the magic that had flowed through her.

Tara was watching too and looking worried. She shook her head slowly. “I’m not s-sure,” she answered truthfully.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

The three friends and Dawn had collapsed onto the floor of the small emergency operating room as they waited for any sign of waking up from Buffy. They weren’t allowed to bring chairs in there, and the doctors didn’t want to move Buffy to a regular room until they were certain of her condition.

The minutes turned into hours and the hours dragged on. Buffy was breathing. She wasn’t choking any longer. But she didn’t wake. Sodas and coffees were consumed by the gallons. Chips and perplexingly bright-orange crackers with peanut butter were eaten by the ton. And they waited. The police came by and interviewed Xander, Willow, and Tara, leaving their cards and asking them to call when Buffy woke up. And still they waited. They played cards. And waited. Spike never showed up.

Dawn heard it first. A barely audible moan from above her uncomfortable seat on the floor. She jumped up, suddenly fully awake, rousing the others.

“Buffy?” she asked softly, clutching her sister’s hand and leaning in close. “Can you hear me?”

Buffy moaned again and lifted her free hand to her head. “Ow,” she muttered, her eyes still closed.

“Buffy? It’s Dawn. Can you talk?”

“Ow.”

The other three had gathered around Buffy’s bed now, waiting hopefully … and worriedly.

“What’s hurting?” Dawn asked.

“Ow.”

“I’m sure they’ll give you something, but you need to talk to us,” Dawn coaxed.

Buffy blinked her eyes partially open, squinting against the blinding, dim light in the room, and looked at her sister. “You’re breaking my hand,” the Slayer rasped out through her blood-clogged throat.

Dawn dropped Buffy’s hand as if it were on fire, then scowled. “I was not!” she contended. “You just think you’re being funny.”

The corners of Buffy’s mouth quirked slightly before she closed her eyes again, grimacing with the pain of moving her eyelids.

Then in the next moment Dawn exclaimed in a completely different tone, one of relief and joy, “Oh, my God! Buffy! You think you’re being funny! You’re okay!” as she flung her arms around her sister, covering her in a desperate hug.

“Dawnie…” Buffy groaned out, lifting an IV-laden hand up to try and return the painful embrace. “Ow,” she repeated, truly meaning it this time.

“Oh, God … sorry!” Dawn exclaimed, tears of relief streaking from her eyes as she released the hold she had on Buffy and stood back up. “But … you’re okay? Please say you’re okay!”

“Head … killing,” the Slayer muttered, rubbing her forehead lightly.

“Do you remember what happened?” Willow prodded from the other side of the bed, touching a hand down gently on Buffy’s shoulder.

“Shot. In head?” Buffy asked, still rubbing gently.

“No, in the chest … the lungs,” Willow corrected. “It just missed your heart.”

“P-probably the magics giving you the headache,” Tara offered. “Or m-maybe the lack of oxygen to the brain for so long.”

Buffy opened one eye and found Tara standing next to Dawn. “’Splainy,” she rasped out.

“Well,” Xander began from her other side next to Willow, “you might’ve died, just a little … again.”

“For just like a minute … o-or ten?” Dawn interjected.

Buffy’s brows went up, despite the pain, and she opened her other eye.

“We didn’t resurrect you exactly,” Willow assured her quickly. “We just ... um … healed you … more of a magical resuscitation than a resurrection … like witchy CPR.”

“You did the resurrecting on your own,” Xander offered. “After the … healing … with birthday candles and cigarettes. You may need to change your birth date now.”

“Or just take up smoking,” Dawn suggested.

Buffy closed her eyes again with a long-suffering sigh.

Memories swept over her then, fleeting and misty. Those indescribable flowing, swirling, ethereal colors that had surrounded her in heaven had been there, waiting for her once again. She remembered the light pulling her toward them, toward the peace and love and exquisite joy that awaited her. Part of her wanted to go so badly, to be surrounded by that again, to be done, to be at peace, to not fight any longer.

But she’d made a promise. She promised Spike she wouldn’t go. Not if she had a choice. Did she have a choice? She didn’t know, but she would fight. She’d promised.

She tried to turn away, to go back toward the dark oblivion from whence she’d come. She grappled to find something to hold onto in the emptiness that surrounded her, but there was nothing. She closed her eyes so she couldn’t see the light, couldn’t see the colors, as she fought to break out of the inexorable pull of that power. She reached back for life, back for Spike, for Dawn, for her friends. They were there, she knew it! But they seemed just out of reach as she was dragged, now literally kicking and screaming, away from them.

And then, suddenly, a strong hand shot out of the darkness and grasped hers, pulling her away from those swirling, diaphanous colors that promised tranquility, serenity, unconditional love. The darkness engulfed her again, and she floated there for what seemed forever. It wasn’t serene or tranquil, it was tumultuous and frightening, with alarming sounds coming from the dark that she couldn’t identify. But there was one thing she recognized – the love that had pulled her back. She clung to that in the darkness, waiting for that strong hand to pull her the rest of the way back into his world, back into his strong arms, back into life, for there was only one love that could have kept her from heaven: Spike’s.

“I’ll go get a nurse so they can give you something for the pain,” Xander offered, pulling Buffy from her thoughts, before he slipped from the room.

Buffy blinked her eyes open, the memory fading back into the realm of dreams. “Where’s Spike?”  Buffy asked in a rough croak, looking around.

“He, ummm …” Willow stammered, looking at Tara and Dawn, but getting no help from either of them. “Well, see, he left before you … recovered from … being … dead.”

“And no one went to get him or tell him that you weren’t dead anymore,” Dawn put in, scowling at Willow.

Buffy’s eyes fastened on the witch, suddenly much more alert despite the pain piercing her eyes and throbbing like daggers through her brain. “Why?” she rasped.

“Well, he was pretty upset, and we weren’t sure if you would … recover fully, and…”

“They were afraid Spike would tear their arms off and beat them over the head with them to crack their skulls and eat their brains if you weren’t 100% old Buffy when you woke up,” Dawn filled in helpfully, the words coming out in a rush, in one long breath.

Willow scowled back at Dawn. “That’s not what I said!”

Dawn shrugged, folding her arms over her chest. “It’s what you were thinking.”

“Where’s Warren?” Buffy asked, still in a throaty whisper, temporarily ignoring the jibes between the two, though starting to understand pretty clearly what had happened.

The three girls all shook their heads. “He got away, I guess. I don’t know,” Willow answered. “We gave his name and info to the police, but we don’t know if they found him.”

Buffy cleared her throat loudly and painfully, dislodging clotted blood from her airway so she could speak more easily. She had way too much to say for one or two words to cover it. Still, her voice was thin and raspy when she finally spoke.

“So, you’re saying Spike thinks I’m dead and Warren is in the wind?” she asked, her growing anger and surging adrenaline fueling her rant. “Does this not seem like a very predictable horror-movie script to you guys? Like, hey! Let’s run into the deep, dark woods instead of to the brightly-lit police station to get away from the ax murderer?

“What the hell were you thinking not telling Spike?!” Buffy demanded furiously, her voice becoming stronger as she struggled to a sitting position and began pulling wires and tubes and IVs off.

“Buffy, you shouldn’t!” Willow protested, trying to stop her.

“And you shouldn’t have sent Spike out to kill Warren!” the Slayer growled.

“We didn’t!” Willow insisted.

“You did so!” Dawn joined in. “I saw you talking to Xander! He never sent Anya to look for him, did he?”

“He … I … we…” Willow stammered, looking between Dawn and Buffy.

Buffy gasped then, stopping her frantic movement immediately. She clamped her eyes closed and clutched her head with both hands. “Fuuuckkk,” she groaned as bright bursts of pain flashed like electric eels wriggling around in her head, brilliant and blinding.

Xander returned with the nurse then, and the woman hurriedly eased Buffy back down flat, then began reattaching wires and tubes.

“What happened?” Xander asked, looking from Willow to Tara and then Dawn.

“She’s mad about Spike,” Willow told him gravely.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Dawn mocked, glaring at him. “How could you do that, Xander?”

“Me? I’m not the one who shot Buffy! Whatever Warren gets he deserves!” the carpenter retorted.

“So, you just decided that it was fine to use Spike like your own loaded gun so Warren got what he deserves?” Dawn continued angrily.

“I didn’t _make_ Spike do anything. Spike is just doing what comes naturally to him. He’s. A. _Vampire_ ,” Xander reminded her harshly.

The nurse looked up sharply then and Xander smiled nervously. “In the … metaphorical, ‘sleep all day, party all night’ sense,” he added. “And who am I to poop on his party?”

Dawn opened her mouth to retort, but Tara cut in. “M-maybe we should give Buffy some quiet? I think she might need some more rest.”

Outside in the hall, Tara asked Willow, “D-Dawn was right. That is what you and Xander were talking about, isn’t it? Whether to t-try and find S-Spike? So, you knew.”

Willow sighed. “Yes. And I agree with Xan. Whatever Warren gets, he deserves.”

“B-But what about Spike? Didn’t you consider what it might d-do to him?”

Willow chewed her bottom lip a moment, frowning. “I just figured one more guilty victim on top of the thousands of innocents, wouldn’t really make that much difference.”

“That’s kinda cold, Will. D-Didn’t you see how h-hard he was fighting to not let the d-demon take over?” Tara wondered, her brows drawn down into a worried frown.

Willow unconsciously rubbed at the aching bruise across her back where Spike had tossed her against the cabinets. “Yeah, well, what would be colder would be for Warren to come back and finish the job, which he would! This way, it’s over.”

Tara shook her head and looked away, still frowning. “I g-guess we’ll have to agree to d-disagree then.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

It was around three a.m. when Buffy checked herself out of the hospital, against the advice of several doctors.  Her headache had receded to unbearable, with only intermittent bursts of blinding pain. She and Dawn headed back home with her friends following at a semi-safe distance. She wanted to change into something less blood-stained and see if maybe Spike was there, waiting. She doubted it, but there was a small spark of hope that maybe, somehow, he hadn’t found Warren and had just come home.

The spark died immediately when they entered the dark, deserted house.

Buffy washed up a little and changed into a shirt that didn’t have a bullet hole in it and wasn’t covered in blood. When she came back downstairs, the others were waiting for her.

“Do you want us to come with?” Xander asked.

She stared at him for a long, uncomfortable minute, long enough to make him wonder if she’d heard him.

Buffy felt like her world was imploding. She prayed to any saint, sinner, ghost, or god who would listen for Spike to just be drunk and forlorn, not down the dark rabbit hole of evil. The light inside him had been growing slowly, but it had taken years for it to become strong enough to fight the darkness of the demon.  Would the light be enough to battle the black, blinding rage of heartbreak now? Now that she’d let him in? Now that she’d said the words.

Those three horrible, cursed words! Why did she have to say them? Why did terrible things happen when she said those words? She was cursed, and she knew in her heart that Spike was going to be the one to pay for that. Just like Angel had paid with his soul, Spike, she feared, would pay with his. He would pay for loving a Slayer. Everyone paid for loving her.

Finally, she looked away, blinking away her tears, letting her gaze travel over the others, then back to the tall brunette. “I’m really pissed with you right now,” she said, finally. “I knew you didn’t like Spike, but I didn’t think you’d purposely—”

“There was no purpose! I was purposeless!” Xander argued. “He was distraught. He left! How was I supposed to stop him? He’s like a thousand times stronger than me, with fangs!”

Buffy tilted her head in a semi-nod. “But you didn’t go find him when I was … _undead_ again.”

Xander jerked a little at the turn of phrase, then looked down, abashed. “No.”

“So, whatever’s happened over the last … many hours…” Buffy really had no idea how many hours it had been, “…I lay at _your_ feet. So, you might as well help me clean up _your_ mess.”

“I’m coming, too,” Dawn insisted, lifting her chin defiantly, daring anyone to try and stop her.

Buffy’s frown deepened, if that was possible, and she looked back to Xander, who met her gaze and gave a small tilt of his head. A nod? A shake? A shrug?

Willow and Tara watched the silent exchange, concerned and confused, then Buffy nodded. “Yeah, fine,” she agreed.

Willow and Tara looked at each other in surprise. “Are you sure, Buffy?” Willow asked.

“Yeah, she.… Yeah, I’m sure,” Buffy replied, not explaining further.

Buffy walked over to the weapons chest and opened it, considering. She rubbed her aching head as she tried to figure out what she was going to find when she found Spike. Maybe he was just drunk and sleeping it off somewhere. She snorted to herself, not bloody likely.

Images raced through her mind of Angelus, of how he had so completely changed from the man she loved into a monster, into a killer … or _back_ into a killer. Spike had been no less deadly when the demon was in command – perhaps even more dangerous than Angelus. Spike was straightforward, going right for the kill; he didn’t play with his food before he struck.

There was no reason to think that the Powers That Be would let her off any easier with this vampire that she loved than they had the last. She wasn’t following their rules. They would make her pay dearly for that, she just knew it.

She’d had to kill Angel … not even Angelus, but _Angel_ , soul restored. She had no idea what she’d have to do when she found Spike, but one thing was certain: the PTB had a fucking sick sense of humor and, if she ever had the displeasure of meeting them, she was going to tell them so … with her fists.

She picked up a stake and tucked it into her waistband, then took another and handed it to Dawn.

Dawn’s eyes went wide, taking the smooth wood from her sister’s hands. “What’s this for?”

Buffy gave Xander a sharp, unforgiving glare. “Protection … against Spike.”

“Buffy, he wouldn’t…”

“We don’t know what he’ll do now,” Buffy interrupted Dawn. “We don’t know how far he’s gone or if we can get him back.”

“What about us?” Xander asked worriedly, eying the weapons chest.

Buffy slammed it closed. “You set him on this path, you take your chances.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What will they find in Spike’s crypt? What will happen when Spike realizes Buffy is not dead?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously remarkable -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally brilliant! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks it!


	41. Gone Pear-Shaped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and the others go to Spike’s crypt to find him.

****

**Spike’s Crypt.**

“I told you I’d come for you if you spilled one drop of human blood,” Riley remarked casually, leaning on the dresser his arms crossed over his chest.

“Bloody rich, that is,” Spike snarled, whirling on him. “He killed the Slayer! You remember? Buffy? Girl you once professed t’ love!? You should be helpin’ me, ya git!”

“A promise is a promise, right, Spike? I hear you never break yours. Oh. Oops – until now, I guess. Didn’t you promise Buffy you wouldn’t hurt anyone if we removed the chip? That makes her a liar, too. What a legacy she’ll leave. I’m sure the Council will use her as a cautionary tale rather than a heroic example for all future Slayer training. She’ll be the Benedict Arnold of Slayers. Falling in love with the enemy and fucking them like a blood whore.”

Spike’s growl rumbled low and dangerous in his chest, vibrating the air palpably, but Riley ignored it, continuing his goading taunt.

“I know she let you bite her. Now _that’s_ fucking rich after everything she said to me about letting vamps feed on me. Made me a pathetic, needy little loser. Probably just makes her hornier, huh? Did you fuck her and suck her at the same time, Spike? I bet she really liked that. She could really scream… did you make her scream, Spike?

“And that so-called soul of yours. What a joke!” Riley continued, pushing himself off the dresser and standing up, still ignoring Spike’s warning growl of impending doom. “Buffy sure can find all the monsters with souls. Funny how the ones she wants to fuck miraculously have souls, isn’t it? Two in one town? Seems a little convenient, if you ask me.

“Speaking of monsters with souls – you and Angel? Did you ever, you know, make a bitch sandwich out of her? Seems like something she’d beg for. She’s still really hot for Angel, you know that, right?”

Spike’s growl intensified, the small knife he’d been using to carve designs into Warren’s flesh clutched tightly in his blood-soaked, badly-scorched hand.  “Hope you brought your bloody army with ya, cos you’re gonna need ‘em to pick up the pieces when I’m done with you,” Spike warned.

Riley smiled, his white teeth flashing smugly. “Brought a few friends,” he agreed, waving a hand around the room.

Spike looked around as more Riley Finns – not other soldiers, literally more _Riley Finns_ – emerged from the shadows around him, each armed to the teeth, each with that same smug, self-righteous smirk. Every one of them needing it to be wiped off their faces, viciously and permanently.

Spike roared, leaping at the one that had been talking. The furious vamp ended up careening painfully off the dresser, that particular Riley having vanished into thin air. Then they were all on Spike, punching, kicking, and stabbing him with brutal ruthlessness. They pulled his arms and legs in different directions, and Spike was sure they were going to tear him apart in the middle.  His demon roared in fury and yanked hard, pulling his arms from their grasp, sending several of them careening into each other, knocking some of them down.

He twisted and kicked, dislodging one leg from their grasp. He then used his free foot to boot the two holding his other leg directly in the teeth, one right after the other. Then he was free of their grasp and scrabbling back to his feet, ready to take the rest of them on.

He fought like a demon possessed, using every weapon he had to inflict pain and suffering on the soldiers that surrounded him, roaring and ripping flesh with the knife, claws and fangs. Blood flew. Soldiers screamed and fell, but others came to take their place. There seemed to be a never-ending stream of sanctimonious, self-appointed vampire slayers set on beating Spike into a bloody pulp before they dusted him.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“I’ll go down first, Xander – you’re next,” Buffy whispered as they crouched at the top of the ladder that led to the underground cavern in Spike’s crypt. She hadn’t heard anything from below but a slight moaning for the last couple of minutes, but she knew Spike was there – she could feel the tingle at the base of her spine that was singularly Spike’s.

Xander took a deep breath and nodded, ready to face whatever happened. He was 99.9% sure Buffy wouldn’t let anything happen to him, but there was that small sliver of doubt in there that made his stomach churn. She was pretty pissed off.

Buffy sent one last desperate prayer up to the firmament before silently descending the ladder. She touched down on the soft carpets without a sound, but before she could even turn around, the strong stench of blood and B.O. and other, unknown, but equally pungent, scents hit her. She felt her head spin and closed her eyes, clutching the ladder to keep from falling.

Warren’s voice flooded her mind, words she’d never forget ringing in her ears as his face and the barrel of the gun, huge and terrifying, filled her vision. And then he laughed, nasty, cruel, and ominous. In the next moment, the sound of the shot rang in her mind, drowning him out, filling her ears with the clarion call of death.

She gasped as the bullet struck her, more painful than anything she’d ever felt before, tearing at her flesh, her bone, hurtling into her chest, lodging in her lung, set on destruction. She felt her body jerk convulsively and fall back, knocked to the ground by the force, though she was actually still clinging tightly to the ladder, unable to let go, frozen in place.

_Pain._

_Blood._

_Drowning._

_Cold. So, cold._

_Promise. Pickles._

_Spike._

“Buffy?” Xander whispered down from above when she did not move.

The Slayer jerked, her hands trembling on the ladder, sweat beading her skin; her heart raced in her chest, and tears flowed down her face as she was pulled out of the flashback. She looked up toward the sound, then looked around, trying to get her bearings. She wasn’t in the back yard. She wasn’t dying. She wasn’t leaving Spike again. She was here to find him, to _save_ him. The hard wood of the stake pressed against her back and she closed her eyes. ‘ _Please let me save him_ ,’ she prayed silently, but she had no idea who to send the prayer to.

She opened her eyes and took a deep breath of the stagnant stench of blood and sweat and bile mixed with the sweet scent of candles, and retched. She covered her mouth and swallowed back the vomit, trying to get her mind and body back under her control. Her head was on the verge of splitting open, and, to make matters worse, her chest suddenly felt like it might burst at any moment, also.

“Are you okay?” Xander whispered again, his voice more frantic now.

She held a hand up to him, trying to convey to him that she was okay, and he needed to give her a minute. Apparently, it worked because he stopped whispering shouts down at her.

Standing on wobbly legs, her hands still trembling, and trying not to breathe more than absolutely necessary, she turned and lifted her gaze to examine the candlelit room.

The first thing she saw was Warren chained to the wall, completely nude. His whole body, or at least the parts that she could see, was covered with hieroglyphs and runes carved directly into his skin. It looked as if he was more carving than untouched skin; the white skin just a highlight against the multitude of crimson patterns. Blood ran down his body in rivers, obscuring some of the designs, while others she could make out clearly.

In contrast to the neat, clean lines of the carvings, there were a few deep, large, ragged gouges in the fleshier parts of his body, mostly on his thighs and abdomen. In those spots, skin, fat, and muscle had been ripped out, as if Spike had dug his claws into the man’s body and just torn his flesh away. Buffy could see meaty clumps of gore littering the carpet at Warren’s feet mixed in with the coagulating blood – the man’s missing flesh, she surmised. There were burns all over him also, everything from the bright red of a bad sunburn to the dark black of scorched flesh. Warren’s head lolled forward like a ragdoll, but he was alive. He was the source of the moaning she’d heard.

Buffy stared at him for what seemed a lifetime, taking in the gruesome tableau, her heart beating a painful tattoo against her ribs. Her stomach lurched and churned again at the gruesome sight, but her gorge did not rise. Instead, she began to relax a bit, her breath coming easier, her heart slowing, the pain in her chest receding.  Deep inside she knew it was wrong – _so very wrong –_ to feel what she did, but she simply couldn’t help it. She felt relieved. Warren wasn’t running around loose, plotting on finishing what he’d started. He was here, and he most assuredly was in no condition to hurt anyone.

The next strongest emotion to hit her was annoyance that Spike had used the handcuffs and manacles that he’d had made for _her_ on the nerd. Those were hers, damn it! Now they were all covered in nerd blood. That shit just doesn’t come out.

Buffy bit her bottom lip, trying to come to grips with her raw, unfiltered emotions, but she was simply too exhausted, and her head hurt too much, to spend a lot of time dwelling on it all right now. She could feel bad for Warren some other time, like in twenty-five-to-life when he got out jail. Could they charge him with first degree murder if she only died a little while?

She turned her gaze away from the gory sight of her attempted-murderer and saw Spike on the bed, sprawled face down, asleep or passed out. An empty whiskey bottle lay on the floor next to the bed. She knew it took more than that to get him drunk enough to actually pass out, so probably just asleep, exhausted beyond even his capacity to remain upright.

Xander stepped off the ladder next to her and Buffy suddenly remembered the others that were with her. “Dawn! Stay up there!” she called in a hushed but emphatic whisper, as Willow began to descend the ladder.

Dawn did not listen. She touched down on the carpet after Tara and swept her gaze over the cavern. The girl gasped, then covered her mouth, keeping the bile back, when she saw Warren. Her eyes were wide, shocked, and unable to move from the horrific scene.

Buffy whirled around when she heard her and glared at her sister, who had turned ten shades of green within a few moments.

“Damn it,” Buffy growled angrily under her breath, but it was too late to do anything about it now. Dawn had seen it … seen what Spike could do. Buffy stepped back over to her and physically turned Dawn away from Warren, making her focus on her instead. Buffy had no idea what to say to her to calm the girl down and make it any better. “He was really angry … he … it …” Buffy sighed and gave up. “Just stay here, look down and don’t move, okay?”

Dawn nodded, shifting her gaze to the floor and began thinking about puppies. Cute, fluffy puppies. Happy puppies. Nothing but puppies. _‘Don’t look, don’t look, oh, God, don’t look.’_

Buffy signaled for them all to remain there and she moved forward silently, easing toward the bed. When she got close enough to see Spike’s hands and face, Buffy had to put her hand over her mouth again as bile suddenly rose into her throat. She was sure her face had turned the same shades of green as Dawn’s.

What the hell had happened to Spike today? His face and hands were horribly burned, blackened and cracked with blood seeping from the splits that had opened in his skin. She’d never seen a vamp burned so badly and still walking around. How did that not dust him?

She took a deep breath and swallowed back her horror, assuring herself that he would be okay. That his body would heal. She glanced back over at Warren and her heart clenched in pain, not for Warren, but for Spike. The vamp may be able to physically heal, but what about his soul? Was William even still in there? Was there any light left at all? Would he be the man she loved when she woke him up? Or would he be a wild, feral monster? Would she be able to talk to him, to offer comfort and help him heal? Or would she have to stake him to keep him from killing her and her friends?

Well, there was only one way to find out. She stepped forward and laid gentle a hand on his shoulder. “Spi—"

All hell broke loose.

Spike roared and leapt on the nearest soldier, his fangs sinking into flesh like a knife through butter. Hot, sweet blood flowed into him and he drank ravenously. He plunged his fangs deeper into the muscle, brutally ripping at the vein as the blood filled him with a primal need to kill, to destroy, to massacre, feeding his demon with the nectar of life.

“Spike! Stop! Spike! It’s me! Buffy!” a voice came through the fog of his dream.

The ghost. She wouldn’t stay – she’d said as much – so why was she back. Just to torture him with what he couldn’t have? Couldn’t she just leave him to rest in peace?

“NO! SPIKE! STOP!” came another voice, familiar but somehow distant from him now, the name of its owner lost in the shroud of grief and fury surrounding him. Suddenly, he was flying through the air, light as a feather, until he crashed into the stone wall and tumbled bonelessly to the floor.

Spike shook himself, scrabbling back to his feet, ready to resume the fight with the soldiers, but he was stopped by what he saw. He froze in place, unable to move, trying to puzzle out what was happening.

There were no soldiers. No Riley Finns. There were four sets of wide, frightened eyes looking back at him, heartbeats thunderous in the cavern, deafening in his ears.

“What the fuck, Spike!?” Xander exclaimed, glaring, but still wary of the crazed vampire. “It’s Buffy! You fucking attacked Buffy!”

Spike’s eyes moved to the two other sets of dazed expressions that peered up at him, frightened and shaken. Willow and Tara were at Buffy’s side, trying to staunch the bleeding.

He looked up then and saw Dawn standing near the ladder, a stake clutched in her trembling hands, her face ashen with fear. Fear of the demon, fear of him, he knew – he could recognize it in an instant.

He looked back to where Buffy lay bleeding, writhing in pain, clutching at her head and neck simultaneously. He watched as Tara laid a hand on the jagged wound on the Slayer’s neck and closed her eyes, drawing in a deep, cleansing breath. Willow quickly retrieved two, thick pillar candles that hadn’t been knocked over in the brawl, and placed them on either side of Tara. Willow took Tara’s free hand in hers, laid her other hand down atop the wound in Buffy’s neck, and closed her eyes as she, also, took a deep breath.

Then Tara chanted, “Aceso, Goddess hear my plea, magic mend while the candle burns, injury will end, and health will return, harm to none, my will be done. So mote it be.”

Buffy moaned and writhed under the witches’ hands as the stabbing pain in her brain redoubled with the new influx of magical power. “Damn it, my headache had almost gotten down to oppressive,” she muttered after a few moments, trying to sit up, the gash in her neck healing like, well, magic.

Spike widened his eyes, then blinked, trying to clear his vision. The scene didn’t change. He blinked again. Ghosts. A trick. Warren had found a way to trick him. It wasn’t real. It had to be an illusion.

“Warren’s alive!” Xander announced, working to free Warren from the bonds that held him to the wall. “Unfortunately,” he added under his breath. “Jesus … there are … actual railroad spikes …” Xander began, his voice trailing off in a tone of awed revulsion.

“Should I try to heal him?” Tara asked, looking over at the bloody man.

“NO!” came the unanimous decision from Xander, Willow, and Buffy.

“These chains are locked,” Xander told them, tugging on them with absolutely no effect.

“Key should be hanging in that trunk over there. Open it up and look on the right side – there’s a hook,” Buffy advised the carpenter, drawing curious looks from her friends.

“Oh, get over it,” Buffy sighed, as she started to roll her eyes, but it made her head hurt worse, so she stopped. Instead she pushed up to her feet, Willow and Tara mirroring her. They helped to steady Buffy when she swayed, pain gouging furrows of searing agony in the Slayer’s brain.

Spike crept closer, wary, watching as the three women stood up. The Slayer swayed, but her two friends steadied her. A trick … it had to be a trick. Buffy was gone. He’d seen it with his own eyes. He’d heard it with his ears. He’d felt it with his soul. Her ghost had been here. Couldn’t stay. Wouldn’t stay. Joyce and Dru … they’d told him, too. Gone. His light was gone. His sun … just glitter and frilly ribbons.

Buffy got her balance and her head resumed pounding unbearably, which she could tolerate.

“Spike, it’s me,” she offered softly, reaching a tentative hand out toward him like you would an unknown dog.

Spike’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but he reached a hesitant, blood-stained, charred hand out to touch her. When his fingers met hers a tangible spark bolted through him and he jerked back, suddenly wild-eyed and terrified. He looked from Buffy to the mangled body that Xander was trying to get down from the chains, and back again.

He started shaking his head slowly back and forth, his eyes still wide and looking more crazed by the moment.

“No, no, no … promised. Promised I wouldn’t. Finn’s right … broke the promise. Promised the lady … broke it,” he rambled, covering his ears with his hands. “Monster. Not a man. Lark’s dead, not coming back. No more fire. Screaming … make it stop … so much … _screaming_!”

“Spike, it’ll be okay,” Buffy tried to assure him, taking a step towards him. “Let me help you.”

Spike jerked back, his eyes feral, on the verge of demented. They shone unnaturally bright against the scorched, blackened skin of his face. He held his hands up, as if to shield his face from view.  “No … no, can’t let her see. No light. Hide the demon. The darkness … can’t let her… no. Dark between the suns. Pixies don’t dare. Won’t understand. Lost her. Not dead, just lost, so lost,” he muttered.

“Finn’s in my head! Oh, that’s bloody rich! Wanker dribbling his piss all over my soddin’ brain! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!” he yelled. He began bang his fists against his blackened forehead, peeling off burned skin and exposing red, bloody flesh beneath.

“Spike!” Buffy began again, alarmed and wincing in sympathetic pain at the sight of him as she took another step forward.

“STOP LOOKING AT ME!” he screamed at her suddenly, darting for the ladder.

“SPIKE!” Buffy called after him, taking a step to try and block his path, but he was by her in a flash.

He came to a skidding stop in front of Dawn, who was still standing at the bottom of the ladder with her stake.

“Spike?” she tried gently. “It’s Dawn … you remember me, right? Just wait, okay? Buffy’s here. She’s okay now. They … they fixed her. It’ll be okay.”

Spike shook his head. “Till the end of the world … protect. But world’s done. Gone pear-shaped. That’s a problem, innit? Well, yeah, obviously. Promised. Lost. Bloody lark’s dead. Pixies can piss off. Bad man. Bad, bad man,” he rambled.

He stared at Dawn for a long moment then, his eyes softening, a small hint of recognition showing in them. Dawn reached a tentative hand out toward him then, but Spike jumped back out of reach. In the next instant he was gone, leaping over her, landing half-way up the ladder and darting up the rest of the way.

“SPIKE!” Buffy and Dawn both yelled as he disappeared out the trap door in a flutter of black leather. Buffy mounted the ladder and followed but he was out and gone from the crypt before she could even reach the top.

Buffy half-climbed, half-slid back down and collapsed heavily on the rugs beneath the ladder, clutching her throbbing head. Dawn knelt next to her, wrapping her arms around her sister.

“He’ll come back, we’ll find him, it’ll be okay,” Dawn assured her sister.

Buffy shook her head. “No, it won’t,” she sobbed, leaning into the hug. “There was no fire … he’s gone.”

Dawn shook her head, not understanding. “What do you mean?”

Pain radiated out from the back of Buffy’s eyes, stabbing into her brain like burning icepicks, but she wasn’t sure it was from the lack of oxygen, the magic, or what she’d seen when Spike bit her: William, lying dead in the deep, dark cavern, the fire she’d helped him build completely extinguished. His still-beating, blood-soaked heart had been torn from his chest and it was being slowly consumed by the darkness, turned to dust, bit by agonizing bit.

She’d picked it up and held it in her hands for just a moment before she’d been hurtled out of the cavern, straight through the deepest web of the darkness. Claws reached out for her as she was pulled back out, snagging at her soul, trying to trap her, to rip her apart. And then she was free, torn away from the vampire when Tara flung him across the room with her magic.

Buffy shook her head again. “He’s gone,” was all she could say before heartbreak overwhelmed her and she could only sob, grief wracking her body. It was Angel all over again. She’d lost him. She was cursed, and now Spike had paid the price. There was always a price for her love. Always. How could she have forgotten that?

Xander, Willow, and Tara all looked at each other in silence for a long moment as Warren slumped like a bloody rag doll on the floor, but still breathing, still alive.

“Well, that could’ve gone better,” Xander observed dourly, drawing grim nods of agreement from Tara and Willow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Buffy be able to find Spike before he does anything crazy? What will happen if she can’t find him?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously remarkable -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally brilliant! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She totally rocks it!


	42. Monster in the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Spike’s departure.

 

Buffy sat in the comfy chair in Spike’s crypt, waiting. The TV sat in front of her, but she didn’t bother turning it on. She couldn’t concentrate on it; nothing really made any sense.

It had been two weeks since her latest death experience, and she’d sat right here for most of those fourteen days. Once in a while a friend of Spike’s would come by. Sometimes she told them he was on vacation – what a joke! Other times she said he was down in L.A. visiting Angel – an even bigger joke! She pretended to take their names and she told them all that she’d let him know they’d stopped by when he got back.

The first few days she was here she’d spent cleaning up. Cleaning up the blood. Removing the crime-scene tape the police had put up when they’d taken the badly injured, but alive, Warren away. Straightening up everything that had gotten knocked over. Putting everything back in its place, washing the linens, tossing food and blood out of the fridge that had gone bad – anything she could think of to make it feel ‘right’ again. For being an evil vampire, Spike had been amazingly tidy. She put it back into tidiness, into readiness for his return.

And she waited for William the Bloody. With her stake.

But he hadn’t returned.

The door of the crypt creaked behind her and she turned to look. The witches. Come to tell her their locator spell had failed. Again. They came every day after their classes.

“Hey!” Willow greeted her with a false brightness that nearly made Buffy wince. “Brought ya some coffee from that really expensive place near campus, ‘Java the Hutt’. It should taste twice as good as Espresso Pump’s, it cost twice as much!”

Buffy snorted in fake amusement and took the coffee, but didn’t drink. “Thanks.”

“We were thinking of going to a movie this afternoon,” Willow continued. “Maybe you’d like to come?”

“What’s playing?” Buffy asked impassively.

“’Resident Evil,’” Willow replied cheerfully, as if she’d announced it was the new ‘Scooby-Doo’ movie or something else equally light-hearted.

Buffy arched an ironic brow at the witch. “Sounds fun, but I think I’ll pass on that. Pretty sure I can just sit here and wait for the resident evil to show up and I don’t even have to pay admission.”

Willow chewed her bottom lip and looked at Tara for help.

“M-maybe we could just go for c-coffee?” the white witch suggested.

Buffy held the cup up that they’d brought her. “All coffee’d up.”

“O-or the Bronze?” Tara tried.

A flash of the first time Buffy had ever seen Spike, in the alley behind the Bronze, blurred through her mind. _‘What happens Saturday?’_ she’d asked. _‘I kill you.’_

A sad smile curved the Slayer’s lips but she shook her head. “Sorry, I’m just not fun-sized-girl right now. Maybe another time.”

“S-sure,” Tara agreed, giving Willow a small shrug, unsure what else to try.

“We tried the locator spell again,” Willow told her.

“And it fizzled,” Buffy finished.

Willow looked dismayed. “Yeah,” she confirmed.

“He’s gotten a charm or something to keep from being found,” Buffy told them, not for the first time.

Willow shrugged. “It might wear off,” she suggested hopefully.

“Or he’s dust,” Buffy added despondently, looking down at the stake in her hand.

“Don’t say that, Buffy. I’m sure he’s fine- _ish_. He’s undusty, for sure, just a little rattled. He just needs some time to, you know, un-rattle, he’ll be back,” Willow assured her.

_‘Rattled,’_ Buffy thought, scoffing to herself. The knot in her stomach tightened, her anger at Willow and Xander churning in her guts. Tara, she’d quickly realized, hadn’t been in on the whole ‘use Spike as a weapon’ idea. Buffy had already yelled and screamed at her friends until she had turned blue and her head felt like it was going to split open. They’d begged forgiveness. They said they didn’t know it would do this to Spike. They admitted they were wrong over and over and apologized a gazillion times already. She didn’t know how to forgive them, but she knew how to stuff emotions down into little gilded boxes in her soul, and so she’d done that. Killing them wouldn’t bring Spike back, after all … though the thought had occurred to her more than once.

“I guess no one down at Willy’s has heard from him, huh?” Willow continued, trying to look hopeful.

Buffy shook her head. “I’ve offered money, I’ve promised to not beat them up, I’ve beaten them up, I’ve begged, cajoled, and demanded, I even offered kittens! No one there has seen him. Not even Clem knows where he is. Tobias is asking around for me … any new demons that come in the Unicorn he asks. No one’s seen him, though.”

“D-did you try Angel again, to see if he can find S-Spike with his bloodline link?” Tara asked.

Buffy shook her head. “No point. Fred doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t know where Cordy is, doesn’t know where Wes is! It’s like they all just decided L.A. was lame and it was a good time to go terrorize the Martians that live on the dark side of the moon.

“She said if he came back in my lifetime, she’d call.”

“I thought Martians lived on, you know, Mars,” Willow tried to joke.

“Yeah, mostly, but you know, everyone wants a McMansion in the ‘burbs,” Buffy replied, her tone flat despite the witticism.

Willow and Tara laughed lightly, but it sounded hollow in the quiet crypt.

After a few moments of awkward silence, the witches excused themselves, leaving Buffy alone. Again. Where she always seemed to end up. It was the best place for her. No one else could get hurt if she just stayed alone.

Tears welled up and overflowed, following in the path of the millions that had come before. Was it the curse of being the Slayer that always made sure she was alone? That gave her the barest taste of happiness only to cruelly rip it away? Or was it just ‘Buffy’? Was she just undeserving? What had she done that was so horrible? What was wrong with her? Why did she, and everyone she loved, get punished so severely?

God, why hadn’t they just left her in the ground? Why did her friends insist on killing her by degrees instead of just letting her rest in peace? The hope and joy that had bloomed with her love of Spike seemed like a cruel joke now. Something to remind her of what she didn’t have. Of what she would never have. It was the universe’s version of Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.

Everyone in her life had found someone. They had someone to hold in the dark of night. They had someone to laugh with, to cry with, to just be with. They were happy. They were in love.

Everyone but her. She’d never have that. She realized it now.

How could her heart be so broken and still keep beating? Didn’t it know it was broken? Hadn’t it gotten the memo? It really should read its damn mail instead of letting it pile up on the coffee table. She could feel the shattered pieces stabbing into her chest with every breath. How could it not notice?

And now she sat waiting. Waiting to kill another vampire that she loved. She’d released him from his leash, and it would be her job to stop him. She couldn’t imagine what kind of monster was in charge of the universe, but they were a sick, cruel son-of-a-bitch. If she ever met them, she would rip their heart out, still beating, and stomp on it, just like the universe was so fond of doing to hers.

Buffy stood up, wiping her eyes with her fingers, brushing away the tears, suddenly resolved, knowing exactly what she had to do. She tucked her stake away then reached behind her neck and unhooked the clasp of the delicate chain that held the infinity pendant that Spike had given her. With a heavy heart, she set it down on the table next to the chair, letting the chain slowly spiral down atop it in a small heap.

“I guess forever just got a lot shorter,” she whispered taking a deep breath and heading resolutely for the door.

She’d given up her hope of ever being ‘normal’, of having a normal life, a long time ago. Now it was time to give up her hope of ever being with someone she loved, too. All she was doing was torturing her own soul with crazy hopes and dreams. At some point she had to face the truth, and the hard truth was that love and relationships were something that Slayers didn’t get to have. At least not this Slayer.

She pulled the door of the crypt closed behind herself, laying her palm against it in a final farewell.

“Goodbye, Spike. You sure picked the wrong girl to love. I’m cursed. I’m sorry.”

 

* * *

  ********* FOUR MONTHS LATER **********

* * *

 

“Hello?” Willow answered the phone, pausing the movie she and Tara were watching in the living room at Buffy’s.

Things had been going well for the couple romantically. Although the atmosphere had been very chilly between Willow and the two Summers girls for a while, it seemed like Dawn, at least, had begun to forgive the witch for her part in Spike’s unraveling and disappearance. Willow had done all she could to apologize for what happened immediately after Buffy’s revival, and tried everything she knew to help find Spike after he disappeared. Despite that, Buffy remained detached, practically emotionless, which worried Tara a lot. Willow agreed and tried to talk to Buffy about it, but she didn’t know of any other ways to say she was sorry and that she’d been wrong. She’d even suggested Buffy should beat her up – anything to get some real emotion out of the Slayer – but Buffy had just rolled her eyes at that idea. When the two witches suggested moving out of the house, Buffy asked them not to.  Even though Buffy didn’t need help with the mortgage and other expenses anymore, it seemed silly to have such a big house with just her and Dawn in it. She knew that Tara didn’t have any monetary support from her family, plus she’d rather Dawn not be alone when Buffy went out to patrol or was at work.

“No, she’s not here right now. Can I ask who’s calling?” Willow continued, reaching for a pen and pad of paper that sat next to the phone.

“Oh! Sam! Hi! It’s Willow …. Oh … really? Uhhhh, are you sure?” Willow looked at Tara with wide eyes and the white witch sat up and put her ear near the receiver next to Willow’s.

“Umm, well, he’s hard to mistake for anyone else,” Sam was saying. “I thought I should talk to Buffy. I’m not sure what’s going on. He says he wants us to ‘chip him up,’” the soldier continued.

“’Chip him up’? But Buffy said … well … he … ummmm,” Willow stammered. “Don’t do that. Don’t do anything, okay? What’s your number, again? I’ll have Buffy call you when she gets home from work.”

“Please have her hurry. I’ve got him hidden in a disused barrack, but if Finn finds him, or any of the other soldiers … well … it could be bad,” Sam urged the witch.

“It shouldn’t be too late. She’s teaching self-defense and martial arts classes at the ‘Y’ now. She’s usually home by seven. I’ll have her call you right away,” Willow promised.

Willow hung up the phone, having written the number down and confirmed it back to Sam. She looked up at Tara with hopeful, wide eyes. “Spike’s okay! He’s in San Juan Capistrano! Buffy can go get him!”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

**Later that evening.**

Buffy was still on the couch where the witches had made her sit to hear the ‘big news’. She looked from Willow to Tara, both of them beaming, bouncing and giddy with excitement with their announcement.

“Aaand, this concerns me how?” Buffy wondered, giving them a questioning look. “I’m not Spike’s keeper. If he wants them to ‘chip him up’, then fine. It’ll save me from having to stake him.”

Willow and Tara both frowned, deflating like someone letting the air out of a balloon.

“But, Buffy … it’s Spike – like, ‘grr-argh’ Spike,” Willow pointed out, as if the Slayer had not understood.

“Yeah, I get it. Spike. Who left four months ago. Apparently, he’s capable of taking care of himself. He doesn’t need a chaperone.”

“Buffy,” Willow pleaded, her voice softening as she took a seat next to her friend. “I know you’re hurt and—"

“I’m not hurt. Hurt’s in my rearview mirror,” Buffy argued flatly. “He’s a big boy. If he wants a chip, then let them put one in him. They can give him dip to go with it for all I care. Who am I to tell him what to do?”

Willow frowned. “You don’t even want to see him?”

Buffy shrugged. “Not really. So, is that the big news?” she asked, looking from Willow to Tara.

They both nodded dejectedly.

“Great, I’ll get dinner started. You guys eating in or out?” Buffy asked, standing up.

“Ummm, in I guess,” Willow answered, getting a confirming nod from Tara.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy headed out on patrol a little before midnight. Instead of her normal route, she headed the other way to the cemetery on the outskirts of town. Her cemetery. Well, not hers, exactly, but the one where she was buried … or _had been_ buried.

As she came over the rise, she found what she was looking for: a large group of vamps partying on and around her grave. Most of them were just standing around talking and drinking, some were actually dancing, some were metaphorically ‘dancing’ off in the shadows of an elm, and a couple were taking pictures of each other as they lounged against her tombstone.

She pulled her stake out and twirled it once in her hand. Oh, this was gonna be good.

“Hey, guys,” she called when she got close to them. “Who’s bad-ass enough to try and put me back in there?” she taunted with an innocent smile.

The vamps turned to her as one, surprise slowly being replaced by whiskey-fueled bravado and bloodlust as, one by one, fangs emerged, and growls began to roll through the gentle hills.

Buffy smiled invitingly. “Let’s dance.”

They swarmed her as one, fangs and fists flying. She dusted the first one that got to her with a brutal blow of her stake to its chest, hitting the second one with a round-house kick and sending him stumbling back to bowl two more down. The next nearest her melted into dust at the end of her stake one instant later, then another kick and a jab to the jaw held more off as she dusted another. Three had fallen in a pile of tangled limbs and Buffy swiftly dispatched them, bam, bam, bam. Pretty maids, all in a row. Some ran, leaving just one more, who approached her cautiously.

“What’s the matter? I’m right here. Don’t you want some of this, hot, sweet, Slayer blood?” she taunted, tilting her head to the side to expose her jugular.

The vamp roared and leapt at her, and another pile of dust rained down, leaving the cemetery silent and empty.

“That was quite a show.”

Buffy whirled to find Xander standing a few yards back.  “Just doing my job,” she replied casually. “What are you doing?”

Xander held up a bag from the all-night grocer. “My job – Anya wanted pistachio almond and all we had was rocky road.”

Xander walked closer to her, surveying the copious piles of vampire dust at her feet. “This little display wouldn’t have anything to do with Spike, would it?”

Buffy tucked her stake back into her jeans and snorted derisively. “Why would it have anything to do with Spike?” she asked as she began walking beside the brunette in the direction of his and Anya’s apartment.

“Because the last time I saw you dust that many vamps at once, you were having another romantic crisis.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’m not having a crisis, romantic or otherwise. I’m just doing—”

“Your job,” Xander finished. “I know.

“Except those vamps have been partying there for months. Mostly the same ones all the time. I walk by here a lot and they’ve never even given me a glance,” he pointed out. “You’re usually a bad vampire Slayer, Buff.”

Buffy raised her brows, looking decidedly insulted.

“No, no, no! I don’t mean you’re a bad vampire Slayer, but that you are a Slayer of bad vampires,” he clarified quickly.

“I’m just a vampire Slayer … good, bad or indifferent,” Buffy contended.

“Yeah, not so much,” Xander disagreed.

“And since when did you care what kind of vampires I slay, Xander? You’re not president of the Vampires of America Fan Club, you aren’t even a member – you don’t even know where the meetings are!”

“There are meetings? Do they serve donuts?” he asked, giving her a teasing glance.

“Why don’t you just come out with whatever it is you want to say, Xan?” Buffy suggested irritably as they exited the cemetery and began walking down the sidewalk.

“All I’m saying is, I may not have super strength, a mystical calling, witchy-mojo, or blood that opens portals to hell dimensions … I don’t even have very good judgement sometimes.”

Buffy gave him an ironic lift of her brows, her lips pressed into a hard, thin line.

Xander rolled his eyes. “Fine … maybe I don’t have ‘good judgement’ bone in my body. But I know you.

“You’re in Slayer-bot mode. I don’t think I’ve seen a real smile or laugh from you since that night. I can’t pretend to understand what you see in Spike, and he and I aren’t exactly on each other’s Christmas card lists, but I hate seeing you like this.”

Buffy opened her mouth to say something, but Xander held a hand up to stop her. “I know it’s my fault. I swear I didn’t know this would happen. I just thought … well, it doesn’t matter now. I know I was wrong to not go find him, and I’m sorry … for the eleventy-millionth time. I heard Dawn’s ear-piercing lecture loud and clear – my burst eardrums are living proof – and I get it, I do. But, that’s not the point.”

“Oh, you have an actual point?” Buffy scoffed, still scowling at him.

“A very pointy point,” he assured her. “As much as it pains me, I’m man enough to admit that you seemed a lot happier when Spike was around. Also, I’ve noticed the quality of your puns has really fallen off, which I think is one of the signs of an impending apocalypse, and is quite disturbing to me, personally.

“So, maybe you should think about going down and at least seeing him,” Xander finished with a shrug. “What can it hurt?”

“What can it help? It’s certainly not gonna improve the quality of my puns,” Buffy retorted tersely. “Whatever Spike and I had is history. Buried six feet deep.”

“Yeah,” Xander agreed, stopping in front of his building and turning to face her. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” He touched a finger lightly to her chest, just above her heart, ironically right where Warren’s bullet had struck her. “It’s buried deep in there, but it’s not dead … and it’s eating you up from the inside out.”

He turned then and headed inside, leaving her standing on the sidewalk alone. She looked up at his apartment and saw Anya greet him eagerly, taking the bag from his hand as she planted a kiss on his lips. They sat at the breakfast bar and began scooping out portions into bowls, laughing and talking all the while.

Buffy closed her eyes and clenched her jaw.

“It’s dead,” she stated convincingly, though she was unsure who she was trying to convince.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy came in the front door, closing it silently behind her, careful to not wake the other inhabitants of the house after her patrol. The house was dark and silent in the small hours of the morning, and she didn’t bother to turn on any lights, getting ready to head up for a shower and bed.  When she turned to start upstairs, though, she jumped in alarm, pulling her stake in reflex when she saw movement on the stairs.

“Dawn!” she realized, stopping her forward advance on the ‘intruder’ a split-second later.

“Buffy,” Dawn replied impassively, not moving from where she sat on the fifth stair up from the foyer. She had something in her hand which she was tapping on her thigh in a slow, ominous rhythm.

“What are you doing? I could’ve hurt you!” Buffy flipped on the light so she could see her sister.

“Well, that’s what you’re best at,” Dawn accused coldly, tapping a stack of letters against her leg.

Buffy froze when she saw what her sister had, the stake she’d pulled falling from her numbed fingers and clattering to the floor, unnoticed. There were a dozen letters tied up in a string, drumming ominously against the girl’s leg. “Where did you get those? You were snooping in my room! You are sooo grounded!”

“I wasn’t snooping. I was looking for my sweater that you borrowed. These fell off the shelf in the closet when I moved some clothes,” Dawn defended.

“You didn’t even open them,” the younger girl observed gravely, holding the stack up and flipping her fingers through them like playing cards.

“You knew where he was all this time. He wrote all these letters, and you didn’t even open them!” the girl seethed, her hurt and anger beginning to boil out.

“It’s not any of your business!” Buffy insisted, reaching for the stack.

Dawn, pulled it back, out of the Slayer’s reach. “He was my friend, too! Maybe I would’ve liked to have known that he was okay! Where he was! What he was doing! Maybe I would’ve liked to… to…”

“Do what, Dawn? Look at them! They’re from unpronounceable towns half a world away! Greyhound doesn’t have a Middle East-Africa line!” Buffy argued vehemently, reaching for them again.

Dawn flung them at her, furious. “Did you ever even love him? Are you even _capable_ of love, Buffy!? Or do you just think the world owes you a lapdog to use when you want and kick in the teeth when you’re done with them?!”

“I never kicked him! I didn’t make him leave! He left! All on his own! I tried to stop him! You were there!” Buffy snarled back at her sister.

“He was scared! Even I could see that! He was scared of what you’d think, what you’d say about … about your murderer!”

“Warren didn’t murder me,” Buffy pointed out.

“Spike didn’t know that! Not until we showed up there. He panicked, and you didn’t go after him to tell him you forgave him, that you still loved him! You didn’t even try!”

“I tried!” Buffy argued vehemently. “Willow and Tara did spells, they had the Coven in England do spells to find him. I talked to every demon in Willy’s a hundred times! I offered rewards, I threatened, I begged! I put out word to other demon hangouts all up and down the coast! I waited for him! I even called fucking Angel!”

Dawn waved her hand at the stack of neatly bound letters that Buffy now gripped fiercely in her hand. “Sure, but when you actually had some evidence, some idea of where he was, some way to maybe reach him, you didn’t even open the fucking letters!”

“Language, young lady!”

“Fuck you!” Dawn spat back. “I wish Willow had never brought you back! At least Spike would’ve only gotten his heart ripped out once!

“And now you know exactly where he is, and there _is_ a bus line there, and you won’t even go see him! What kind of fucking cold-hearted bitch are you? You used to say Spike was a monster, but you were wrong. Look in the mirror, Buffy. Even at his worst he was never the monster you are.”

Dawn stood up abruptly, whirled, and stomped up the stairs, elbowing past the two witches who now stood on the landing above, stunned into immobility. Dawn’s door slammed, the sound reverberating through the now-silent house, making Buffy jump.

Buffy closed her eyes, trying to get her breathing and emotions in check. Checked emotions were her special talent, developed over many dark, lonely nights of practice. They were the only way she could survive this world, the only way she could get out of bed in the morning, the only way she could endure the long, empty nights. It was her life now, Xander had been right about that, she was an automaton, emotions just got in the way.

“Buffy?” Willow’s soft voice drifted down the staircase to her. “Are you okay?”

Buffy opened her eyes then, letting her breath out slowly. “Peachy with a side of keen,” she confirmed flatly, flipping the light off and starting up the stairs.

“Oh, uh, cos it sounded like maybe not so much,” Willow prompted. She and Tara backed up as the Slayer reached the top of the staircase to let her pass.

“Yeah, well, that’s the thing about trying to read other people’s minds, Will: you suck at it,” Buffy growled angrily, going into her own room and closing the door with a soft click, which was actually much scarier than if she’d slammed it.

Willow looked at Tara, deep worry lines creasing her features. “I’m no Kreskin, but I’m pretty sure ‘peachy’ is not even in the same state as Buffy.”

Tara nodded gravely. “And ‘keen’ took the last train out of town.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy leaned heavily against her dresser, her head dropping forward as tears threatened, stinging her eyes behind her closed lids. She looked up slowly, gazing into her own eyes in the mirror. The image shimmered, blurred by her tear-filled eyes, then finally coalesced into a cloaked figure that stared back at her. The angry eyes in the mirror revealed a dark, tortured soul beneath, chained and left to suffer alone in the depths of the dungeon she built around it.

The apparition smiled then, revealing jagged, rotting, yellow teeth. “Slayer,” it purred in a deep, gravelly voice. “The glittering ball of energy understands much. _You_ are the monster.”  

Buffy closed her eyes and roared a scream of anger and frustration, sweeping her arms across the dresser and sending everything atop it crashing against the far wall. Glass bottles smashed and burst against the wall, splattering their contents on the floor in a spray of perfume and nail polish. She took Spike’s letters, still in her hand, and ripped them in two, still bundled together, then flung the two stacks across the room to flutter down in a small cloud of misery.

“Buffy? Are you okay?” Willow called through the door.

Buffy flung the door open and elbowed past the witch without a word. She was down the stairs in a heartbeat and the front door slammed behind her the next.

“I’m gonna take that as a definite ‘no’,” Willow mumbled to herself as she looked down the stairs at the still reverberating door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where is Buffy going? What do Spike’s letters say? Is there anyone who can pull Buffy out of this sea of repression and depression she’s in? Is she going to let Sam ‘Chip Spike up’? What’s going to happen if Finn finds Spike at the Army base? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously wonderful -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally astounding! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	43. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone arrives to help Buffy find her way back.

 

Buffy pushed the door to Spike’s crypt open with some effort, the hinges having become stiff with lack of use.  She clicked her flashlight on and surveyed the dark interior. She’d put the word out when Spike first left that the place was off-limits to squatters, that Spike would be back, and anyone trespassing here would answer to her. Apparently, that warning had spread and had been heeded. The place was untouched, exactly as she’d left it four months ago, apart from a thick layer of dust.

Buffy found a lighter, just where it had been left, and lit several candles, giving the room a soft glow. She walked slowly around the empty crypt, trying to remember how it used to be, when Spike was here. It was cozy and filled with life, which seemed a contradiction, being that the owner was dead, but Spike was nothing if not a contradiction.

She stopped at the comfy chair and reached for the small pile of dust that sat on the table next to it. The dust fell away as she lifted the end of chain which held the infinity necklace slowly up, uncoiling it, awakening it from its long sleep. The diamonds, black and white, still sparkled, glimmering in the candlelight. Buffy felt a pang of jealousy – her heart had once sparkled like that, when Spike was here.

She palmed the glittering jewels, closing her fist over them tightly, as if to try and absorb some of their spark. It didn’t seem to be working, no matter how much she wished it. Her heart felt like it had died along with William’s, falling away to dust in her chest.

She tucked the necklace into her pocket as she walked over to the trapdoor and opened it. She shone her light into the lower section, looking around for any unwanted visitors. Everything there seemed empty and untouched, as well. She slowly descended the ladder and shone the light around again, just to make sure, but the bedroom was empty. She lit a few candles around the lower level and then just sat down on the bed.

She really didn’t even know what she was doing here. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t even feel anything. She was just numb. There was a haze of exhausted despair surrounding her, making everything seem foggy, inside and out. She’d worked hard on becoming numb over the last couple of months; it was the only way to survive this world. Everything hurt too much. Just like when she’d first come back from heaven, the world seemed too harsh, too bright, too loud, just too much in every way.

She crawled under the covers and snuggled down in the bed, hugging Spike’s pillow to her chest, and curling into a ball of utter emptiness.

“How did I get here?” she whispered into the pillow, which still had the musky scent of Spike held deep in the soft filling.

No answer was forthcoming from the empty room.

“How do I get back?” she wondered, tears welling in her eyes and spilling over, unable to be contained another moment. “I’m so lost.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy straggled back to the house in early evening of the next day. She didn’t have any classes to teach at the ‘Y’ that day, so she’d just thrown herself a huge pity-party at Spike’s and wallowed in it for hours on end. Oddly, she really didn’t feel any better for all that revelry. Possibly the half-bottle of vodka and three stale Milky Way bars she’d consumed hadn’t really helped much, either.

“Buffy! You’re home!” Willow greeted her, much too loudly and much too brightly.

“Please stop yelling,” the Slayer requested, wincing a little.

“Look who’s here,” Willow continued yelling, at least in Buffy’s estimation. The witch grabbed Buffy by the hand and dragged the Slayer toward the kitchen.

Buffy felt an unexpected jolt of elation spring from deep inside her, her mind immediately picturing Spike sitting there, smug and sarcastic, having a drink, ready to take the piss out of her. Her whole body tingled suddenly, and her heart raced in anticipation as they crossed the dining room and entered the kitchen. Spike’s name was on the tip of her tongue when she saw him.

“Giles,” she whispered in shock, her throat tightening with the sudden turn of emotion.

“Oh, God, Giles,” she cried, tears welling in her eyes at the sight of him. She launched herself at her ex-Watcher and hugged him tightly, nearly knocking him over.

“Buffy, I believe you’ve gotten stronger, my dear, or I’ve gotten weaker,” Giles teased, wrapping his arms around her and only wincing slightly as she squeezed him.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot you were old and decrepit,” she apologized, releasing her hold a little, but not letting go.

Giles snorted a laugh and hugged her tighter. “It’s so good to see you, too, Buffy. I missed you so much.”

“Oh, Giles,” Buffy moaned against his shoulder. “I’m so lost.”

“Well then, it’s good that I’m here with breadcrumbs and old-person wisdom, isn’t it?” he smiled sadly, holding her against him, stroking her hair reassuringly. “You’ve cut your hair.”

Buffy laughed through her tears and nodded. “That’s the least of my problems,” she admitted, weeping harder.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Tell me, Buffy,” Giles urged, guiding her to a chair at the breakfast bar. He went around and set to making a couple of cups of tea for them as she gathered herself. 

Buffy wiped her eyes and took some deep breaths to calm down. She had not really cried that hard in a very long time. She’d been holding it all in, pretending it didn’t hurt, convincing herself she didn’t care. To finally let it out made her soul feel a little lighter, but the pain still churned and raked at her like daggers across her heart.

“I don’t even know where to start,” she admitted, running a hand back through her hair, which, while still shorter than it had been at one time, had grown out considerably since she’d cut it last year.

“Well, the beginning, then,” Giles suggested, waiting for the water to heat. “That’s generally recognized as an excellent place to start by most experts in the field.”

Buffy shook her head, biting her lip. What was the beginning? She propped her elbows on the counter and dropped her forehead into her hands, trying to sort through her jumbled mind. She spoke to the countertop, not daring to look at Giles.

“I’m in love with Spike,” she blurted out, making Giles turn around and face her, his brows raised.

“He … helped me after … I came back – the first time, or, well, I guess it was the second time. If I keep dying and coming back, I’m gonna need a score card,” she rambled. “Did Willow tell you I died again? Warren shot me, I died for like, ten minutes or something crazy, Tara healed me and gave me a bitch of a hangover for like four days. I don’t recommend it.

“Anyway, Spike thought I was dead, cos my amazingly stupid friends thought it would be fun to have their own little vengeance vampire or something. I don’t know. I was dead, so, obviously my opinion didn’t matter.  Anyway, Spike embraced his evilness again and got a little creative with the nerd and, when Spike realized that I wasn’t actually dead, his brain exploded and he ran off and, well, I guess that’s when I really got lost.

“We couldn’t find him – and I really tried, I did! No matter what Dawn thinks! – but he didn’t come back and then I just realized that I truly am cursed. That’s the only explanation for it. The Slayer isn’t meant to be happy. I’m not meant to find love or be with someone who’ll go get ice cream for me at midnight and sit up watching stupid old movies while we eat it all. Death is my gift. So, I just shut it off. I gave up on love, just like I gave up on normal, and embraced the slaying, cos it hurt too much, and I was so very tired of hurting.

“Then I got the letters, but it was too late, I had built the walls back up. I was too lost in the maze of hopelessness I’d built trying to keep the pain away. But Dawn can’t understand that. She just thinks I’m a cold-hearted bitch, and I swear I’m not … I don’t think I am. I don’t know, maybe I am,” she admitted morosely, still looking down at the countertop.  

“But now I don’t know how to get back from bitch-ville. I just want … I just want things to be like they were with Spike before Warren and his stupid gun. I just want to be happy. Is that really too much to ask?”

Buffy took a breath and then sighed it out, finally looking up at Giles, who was looking a little shell-shocked.

“You’re in love with Spike?” he asked.

Buffy barked out a short, incredulous laugh. “Is that the only part you heard?”

Giles took his glasses off and cleaned them thoughtfully. “Well, no, I heard the words, but that’s the only part I grasped,” he admitted, putting his spectacles back on and looking up at her.

“May I ask if perhaps Willow has been dabbling in the magics again?” Giles wondered.

Buffy gave him a knowing smile but shook her head. “No, it’s not a spell.”

“Well, then, you’re in love with Spike, errr … I assume his brain didn’t literally explode?” he clarified.

“No, he just started channeling Dru or something … like, off the deep end, cuckoo bird,” Buffy confirmed, twirling her finger next to her temple. “And then he ran off.

“Did I mention that Spike has … _or had_ , a soul?” Buffy added.

Giles’ brows lifted more. “You must’ve left that out in the Reader’s Digest version of events.”

“But … I think – well, I think it was killed, or at least mortally wounded, when he went all ‘grr-argh’ on Warren, so I’m not super-sure how great it’s functioning, if at all. I don’t know if he’s turned totally Angelus or not.

“Oh, did I mention I had Spike’s chip removed, too?”

Giles opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Another small omission.

“So, Spike, whom you love, is soulless and chip-less, missing, and presumed armed and dangerous?” Giles summarized.

“Well, we know where he is now. He’s in San Juan Capistrano at the Army base there. Sam – that’s Finn’s wife – called and said he came in there and asked her to put the chip back in,” Buffy provided. “I don’t know about the dangerous part,” she admitted. “Maybe not? Since if he’d gone totally over to the dark side, he wouldn’t be asking anyone to put the chip back in. I mean, could you see Angelus asking someone to ‘chip him up’? I really don’t know what’s going on. I’m just so confused.”

Giles closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, as if trying to improve the blood circulation. If she was confused, he was utterly baffled. “I believe tea will not be adequate in this situation. Do you have any scotch, by chance?”

“As a matter of fact…” Buffy got up and opened an upper cabinet in the corner, pulling out a full bottle of Glenkinchie and holding it up. “Will this do?”

“Brilliantly,” Giles agreed, finding a couple of glasses for them.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Do you remember when I told you that life was terribly easy, and things simply worked out wonderfully for everyone?” Giles asked sometime later, having sipped his way through two tumblers of scotch as he listened to her story again, with a few more pertinent details filled in.

They’d retired to the living room, sitting on the sofa as they talked.

“Yeah?” Buffy replied, unsure where he was going, still nursing her first glass of scotch. It wasn’t really sitting well with the vodka and stale chocolate bars.

“You do realize I was lying, don’t you?” the ex-Watcher inquired.

Buffy snorted a short laugh. “I kinda figured that out, yeah.”

Giles smiled at her kindly, reaching out and grasping her hand. “Buffy, love may be something that you fall into, but it doesn’t remain that way. Love is like a garden, it requires work, tending, weeding, planting, watering, and fertilizing to grow. If you truly love Spike, then you must expect there to be times when you will have to work, or even fight, to keep it alive.

“Mistakes are made, but if you are both willing to work through them, mend the error, forgive and move on, then the garden can flourish. If you’re not, then ….” Giles’ voice trailed off and he shrugged.

“No Jack O’ Lanterns for Halloween fun,” she filled in.

Giles squeezed her hand and released it. “Precisely.”

“But, how do you know when to fight and when to just douse it with gasoline and toss a match into it?” Buffy wondered.

Giles sighed. “I suppose it’s when you realize that you are the only one tending the garden.

“Does he love you, Buffy? Does he fill in a missing piece of your heart? Is he still trying?”

“He did –deeply. I’ve really never felt anything like it before, Giles. He knew my pain and I knew his, we fit into the missing cracks of each other’s soul,” Buffy revealed. “And he made me laugh.”

The ex-Watcher gave her a soft smile. “That sounds like …” Giles coughed and cleared his throat uncomfortably, as if the words had gotten stuck in his craw, which they had.

“It sounds like he may be special, doesn’t it?” he managed only because of things that Willow had told him on the phone when she’d urgently summoned him back to California early that morning.  “Someone who knows your soul is not something many people ever find, Buffy, let alone one who can make you laugh.”

“But then he ran, he broke that promise to me … b-but he did send letters,” Buffy admitted.

“And what did they say?” Giles wondered.

Buffy shook her head. “I didn’t read them. I’d given up by the time I got the first one.”

“Well, do you still have them?”

“Sort of,” Buffy hedged. “I might’ve torn them up a little.”

“Well, my dear, I’m told that the mystical qualities of Sellotape can be helpful in that circumstance.”

Buffy nodded, looking down at the amber liquid in her glass. “I think … I think I’m cursed. Maybe Slayers just aren’t meant to be happy or love or …”

“That’s nonsense,” Giles interrupted her.

“Is it?” she asked sharply, looking up at him. “Look at what happens with people I love – they die or leave or … turn evil. Look what happens anytime I get the least bit close to true happiness. It’s like Angel’s curse, only I just have to get _near_ it for everything to blow up in my face.”

“Buffy, I do believe that is called ‘life,’” Giles asserted. “While I admit that most people don’t experience the type of unsettling breakups that you have, the fact is that everyone has lost people they love. Relationships fail. People change, grow apart, move on, even die.

“Believing that you are the only one who goes through this is simply, well, I don’t mean to sound unkind, but it’s a bit self-absorbed, to be perfectly honest. I can understand that it may feel like you are the only person who this happens to, but trust me, my dear, you are not.

“The only constant in life is change, Buffy. Which means you will not remain giddily happy or horribly miserable forever,” Giles advised sagely.

Buffy shook her head despondently. “This pain feels like it’s been inside me forever.”

“Well then, that must mean it’s time for things to change,” Giles suggested hopefully.

“So, you don’t think I’m cursed?” she asked, meeting his eyes, not really believing him.

“I do not believe you are cursed. I believe your life is extremely complex and dangerous and fraught with situations and choices that no one else in the world must face. All relationships and friendships you have will be constantly tested and stretched to the breaking point and beyond. It will take someone very special to weather that storm over the long haul, Buffy.”

Buffy looked back down at her glass of scotch and nodded despondently. That sounded a lot like a curse to her, no matter what Giles wanted to call it.

“Are you terribly disappointed in me?” she asked after a few long moments.

“Buffy, no, why would I be?” Giles asked earnestly.

Tears welled in her eyes and began to stream down her cheeks again, but she snorted a laugh. “Well, let’s see: I’m in love with a vampire – again! – the evil thing I’m supposed to slay.

“I set William the Bloody free and he tortured and mutilated at least one human. One that totally deserved it, but still, pretty sure it won’t get me nominated for ‘Slayer of the Century’.

“I can’t even be mad at Spike for what he did to Warren, and I know I should.  I’m more pissed with my friends for how they used him to get revenge without once thinking what it would do to him.

“I guess all that’s missing is kicking puppies and defacing dusty books to make me the worst Slayer in history.”

“Buffy, I can assure you that you are not the only Slayer to fall in love with a vampire,” the Watcher revealed. “Vampires and Slayers are, after all, two sides of the same mystical coin. Attraction is almost inevitable.

“I can’t say that I approve of Spike or Angel as beaus for you. I feel you deserve better than a vampire, soul or not. I want more for you. That way lies a future filled with pain. I don't want that for you,” Giles admitted.

Buffy’s lips curved into a sad smile. “Too late. Pain is … part of me. I’m the Slayer. I’m made of pain, made to inflict pain, made to endure pain, made to use pain. Spike understood that, he actually helped me … bear it.”

Giles sighed heavily and removed his glasses, polishing them slowly, not looking at her. Finally, he replaced his glasses and looked up, meeting her eyes. “I wish I could take that away, Buffy. You have no idea how difficult it is to … watch someone you love while they are in pain and be unable to help.

“Watchers, that’s all we do: we watch. We try to teach, to prepare our Slayers, we try to … help. But in the end, the world rests on the Slayer’s shoulders … and so does the pain.

“If Spike can help you endure that, then …” Giles shrugged and cleared his throat again as the words seemed to have gotten stuck there, “... then perhaps I have … misjudged.

“What I have not misjudged, however, is you. Buffy, you have grown into a strong, successful woman, and I couldn’t be more proud of you. You’ve provided a loving, supportive home here for Dawn, stepped into your mother’s shoes in that regard – which are not easily filled. You’ve got a good heart, and resilient soul. You’re kind and generous, and, even when you’re lost, you keep trying, you never really give up, even if you think you have.

“Oh, and, in your spare time, you save the world,” Giles finished, giving her a soft smile.

“I love you as a daughter and I am proud of the woman you are, Buffy.”

Buffy clamped her eyes closed, trying her best to hold the flood of tears back, but to no avail. A sob wracked her body and her tears came harder, the flood turning into a deluge.

Giles took the glass from her hand and set it on the coffee table along with his, then pulled her into a tight hug, which she gratefully accepted.

“I love you, too,” Buffy sobbed against him. “I never want to disappoint you.”

“You never shall, Buffy. I assure you.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What will Buffy find when she mends Spike’s torn letters with the magic of Sellotape? We’ll find out next.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously wonderful -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally astounding! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	44. My Dearest Buffy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy puts the magic of scotch tape to work and reads Spike’s letters.

* * *

 

 

Buffy dragged herself upstairs and into her room, emotionally drained and mentally exhausted. She felt bad leaving Giles to visit with Dawn, Willow, and Tara since he was both jet-lagged and just as exhausted as she was, but she just had to bail on him.  There was something she needed to do. Something that was long overdue.

She began gathering up the various halves of the letters from the floor of her room where she’d tossed them. At least they’d stayed in the torn envelopes, so it wasn’t too hard to match the two halves up.

She sat on her bed with the puzzle, shifting the different halves around until they all matched with their partners. When that was done, she looked for the one with the earliest postmark and began there. She frowned, noticing that the postmark was actually only four days after Spike had disappeared, but she hadn’t gotten it for nearly thirty days. The postmark was from Istanbul, Turkey.

She shook her head. How the fuck had Spike gotten there, and so quickly? One way to find out.

Buffy opened the two halves of the letter and lined them up carefully, then taped them together with scotch tape before she began reading. Spike’s handwriting was neat and flowing, an old-fashioned script that made her smile and warmed her heart for some reason. It was the handwriting of a poet, of a romantic, she realized, and it fit him as surely as his duster and his smirk.

_‘My dearest Buffy,_ ’ it began. _‘Please forgive me.’_

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike sat against the luggage in the belly of a Turkish Airlines 747 headed from New York to Istanbul. It was dark and a bit cold in there, but neither bothered him – he could see well enough and he didn’t feel the cold. He’d arranged the suitcases into a little nook where he could sit comfortably, using a smaller, hard-sided case as a writing desk. He and Dru had traveled the world together for over a century, but with the advent of airplanes and dark, pressurized luggage compartments, it had gotten so much easier, and faster. He did have to choose which flights to sneak onto carefully, timing his arrivals and departures to stay out of the sun, but it wasn’t that hard to do. He’d never been too arsed about the sun, anyway. Not that he sunbathed or anything, but he could endure a bit of scorching while dashing for the shade of a hangar or concourse if he had to.

He stared at the nearly-blank letter to Buffy. ‘ _Please forgive me_.’ What more was there for him to say? He shook his head and ran his hand back through his hair. It had long ago come loose from its trappings and curled wildly around his burned, but healing, face.

He leaned his head back against his soft-sided luggage pillow and closed his eyes, willing the tears to just stop coming, but they wouldn’t. He could see her looking at the nerd – _at his victim_ – with horror and shock showing in her green eyes. He had never wanted her to see such a thing – certainly not from his hand. But she had. He didn’t know how – how she had escaped death again – but she had.

He simply couldn’t bear for her to look at him with those same eyes. Those eyes that had seen his true self. Those eyes that knew exactly what he was, up close and personal. He was a monster. No matter how much she’d argued before that he was a man, now she knew the truth. Whatever that light was that she’d kindled inside him, it couldn’t have been a soul. It was just a hope, a happy dream, a fantasy. Something to let her sleep at night while lying in his arms.

He knew that she’d never touch him again – how could she now that she’d seen that? – but he could make some amends. He could let her sleep at night, at least, even if it wasn’t in his embrace. He could become the thing – the man – that she thought he was. Even though he could never have her, at least she could rest well knowing that she hadn’t loosed a monster on the world. He would become what she thought he was: a vampire with a soul.

He’d heard of a place, of a demon, who could restore souls. The rumors were ancient and vague, unclear as to where the demon was or what price had to be paid, but he knew a place to start looking, and that was in Istanbul. He and Dru had had some dealings with a powerful sorceress there nearly fifty years ago. The woman had looked to be in her late twenties, but her power and knowledge were staggering. If Spike had to guess, he’d say she was centuries old, despite outward appearances. If anyone knew who or where this demon was who could restore souls, it would be Lilith.

Spike sniffed and blinked his eyes, wiping the dampness from his cheeks, and looked back down at the page. He couldn’t just leave it at that, so he began writing without having any real idea what to say.

_I’ve stared at this page for some time now, and I can’t find the words that could possibly express the depth of my remorse. I don’t know if they exist, pet. I’ll never forgive myself, but I beg you to find it in your heart to at least not hate me. I couldn’t bear seeing hatred in your eyes again, Buffy. Not after I’ve seen love in them. It would destroy me, utterly and completely._

_I know what I did was wrong, but I’m not sure if, given the same circumstances of your death, I wouldn’t do it again. And that’s the rub, isn’t it? You say I’m a good man. Would a good man do that? I think not. I’m not a good man, my love. I’m a monster. And now you’ve seen a small sample of what a monster like me is capable of._

_I am on my way to a place where I can become what you think I am, Buffy. I don’t know how long this journey will take, but I will write when it is done, and I will return, changed._

_Please forgive me, I beg you again. Please don’t hate me. I beg of you with all my being, Buffy. Don’t hate me._

_Yours,_

_Spike_

_P.S. I don’t know if Dawn can forgive me for my sins, or if she can ever bear to look at me again knowing what I am, but please give my apologies to her, as well. I know I am not keeping my promise, but I will come back and protect her. Till the end of the world._

Spike sniffed again and wiped his eyes, trying to keep his tears from smearing the ink. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, folding the letter and stuffing it into an envelope. What more was there to say?

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Oh, Spike …” Buffy murmured, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I don’t hate you,” she told the letter, shaking her head. “And you aren’t a monster.

“What the hell are you going to do? I don’t want you to change,” she moaned, worry and pain wrapping tightly around her ribs like an iron band, squeezing the breath out of her.

Buffy set that letter aside and searched for the next postmark date.  It was three days after the previous one and from Tangier, Morocco.

* * *

 

_My dearest Buffy,_

_My quest is not complete. I know I said that I would not write again until it was done, but I miss you all the way to my bones. I wish I could touch you, inhale your scent, hear your voice, see your smile. I dream of you daily. Sometimes you even come to me as a ghost, a waking dream, we talk, and you smile, but it’s not you. The ghost cannot capture your passion and fire – it only makes me miss you more. Your passion is what makes you the woman I will love until my last moment on this Earth and beyond into infinity. You will be in my heart as I crawl through the fires of hell._

_I don’t know how many times my heart can be ripped from my chest and I still survive. Seeing your light snuffed out in that cold, sterile room gutted me more deeply even than seeing you fall from that tower. That had been a warrior’s death, a choice, a sacrifice to your calling – it had been nothing but passion. This one had been meaningless, hollow. You were stolen away from me, from Dawn, from the world, by a sniveling coward for no higher purpose. There was no passion in this death. There was only pure heartbreak._

_Then, seeing the look in your eyes when you saw what I had done in the crypt twisted the knife even deeper. I knew in that instant that you were somehow alive but completely lost to me. I could see your fire, burning like a sun inside you, but I knew that I would never again be burned by your brilliance. For how could you forgive me for what I had done when I cannot forgive myself?_

_And now, sitting in this cargo hold waiting for the next leg of my journey to take me south, I feel so lost and alone. I would walk into the sunrise but for one thing – the promises I’ve made to you. I would crawl through hell to keep them, Buffy, and I may have to do just that. But I will keep them._

_I will be back, and you will see a change in me. I will be a man you can believe in. A man you can trust. I won’t be the monster you last saw. That is another promise to you that I will keep, no matter the cost._

_Please give Dawn my love, if she will have it, for it is yours, and only yours, to give._

_Yours always,_

_Spike_

* * *

 

“God, Spike … how many times can _my_ heart be ripped out?” Buffy sobbed, finishing the letter. “I don’t want you to change! Why do you think I want that?” she asked the letter, shaking it in her hand as if to make it answer her. “I never said that! I never even thought it,” she cried, trying to convince the paper in her hand.

“You’re a fucking idiot, that’s what it is,” Buffy rebuked the letter, growing suddenly angry with frustration.

“When I get my hands on you, I’m gonna beat the idiot out of you, once and for all!” she promised, but then sighed, deflating back into anguish. “And maybe you can beat the idiot out of me,” she muttered, picking up the next letter in turn.

The remaining letters, from towns all across Africa, were very much the same, save one – the last one. Each one begged her forgiveness. Each one pledged that he was going to be changed when he came back. Each one twisted a knife in her gut, tearing her heart out piece by agonizing piece.

Each one assumed that she was a better person than she actually was, that she would hate him for what he had done to Warren. She just couldn’t hate him for it. No matter how wrong it had been for him to do, she could understand it. Hell, if someone had killed Spike or Dawn, if one of them had died right in front of her like that, would she not seek revenge? Had good men been driven to act like monsters at times, in the name of justice or vengeance? Certainly. Did that make them monsters? She didn’t think so; it just made them human. And, despite everything, she felt Spike had become more human than demon in recent months.

She wondered forlornly if she had read these when they had come, if she could’ve somehow found him, stopped him from doing whatever it was he was planning. There were no return addresses, only postmarks, and he didn’t seem to be in one place more than a few days. How could she have possibly found him from these late-arriving letters? She still didn’t know exactly what it was he was planning, only that she would ‘see a change’.  God, she didn’t want a change! She wanted to go back in time to that horrible day and just cut the time between then and now out of her life, excise it and toss it in the fire.

She sighed, knowing that wasn’t a possibility. The only direction was forward. Whatever Spike had done could certainly be undone, right? She hoped so.

The very last letter, however, made her doubt that assumption. It began as all the others with, ‘ _My dearest Buffy_ ,’ then he’d written, _‘It is done_.’ Below that was a hodge-podge of drawings and words, scribblings, and scratches that tore through the paper.  The whole thing was splattered with drops of blood. She turned it this way and then that, trying to make out the words, but the ones that were legible were disjointed and impossible to decipher.

_Buffy. Spark. Too bright! Monster. Man. Hurts. Help me._

“God, Spike, what have you done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Buffy goes to the Army base and finds out what Spike has done. Will he be able to accept her forgiveness? Will she be able to help him out of the hell he’s cast himself into?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously wonderful -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally astounding! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	45. Please Help Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two people Spike loves most in the world come to find him.

 

Still sitting on the bed with all of Spike’s letters around her, Buffy dug in the pocket of her jeans and pulled out the infinity necklace. She bit her lip, watching the pendant twirl, both diamonds, the dark and light, sparkling in the light.

Time to tend the garden. It had gone neglected all summer. She hoped it could be brought back to life, that the colorful, happy, contented blooms that had been flourishing there would return. Fuck the PTB and their curse on her life! She gave them _everything_ – she’d killed monsters and demons and gods for them. She’d given her life three times, for heaven’s sake! She was not giving them Spike. She simply refused! If they wanted a fight, then fine, she’d fight.

She put the necklace back on, closing her eyes and relishing the feel of it against her skin, the feel of the promise behind it seeping into her soul – eternity. Taking a deep breath and wiping her tear-stained cheeks, she made a hasty plan, then quickly gathered up all the letters and headed across the hall to Dawn’s room.

“We need to talk,” Buffy announced without preamble when she saw Dawn’s door open, the girl laying on her bed reading one of those novels Spike would probably not approve of.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“But what could have happened to him?” Dawn asked, not for the first time, as she and Buffy sped down the freeway in the Jeep toward San Juan Capistrano and the Army base there.

“Do you think he got de-vamped?” Dawn wondered, looking over the letters that she held in her lap, also not for the first time. “Is that even a thing?”

Buffy shook her head. “I – I don’t know,” she answered worriedly. “I don’t think so, because why would he want Sam to chip him, right?”

Dawn nodded slowly, looking at the very last letter. She held it up and made a face that conveyed more than words. _Cos he’s lost his mind? Maybe he doesn’t even remember what he did. Obviously, he’s a few Fruit Loops short of a full bowl._

Buffy frowned, and turned her eyes back to the road.

When Buffy was young and still thought she could have a normal life despite her Calling, she wanted nothing more than to have Angel change, to be a ‘real-boy’. She dreamed of a white wedding in the sunshine, of buying a house with a white-picket fence, getting a dog, and having 2.5 children with him. She pictured them getting normal jobs, selling Tupperware, raising the kids, going to school plays, and growing old together.

That hadn’t worked out.

She’d tried it again with Riley.

That hadn’t worked out, either.

Buffy knew now that would never work out. There was no normal. She was the Slayer; her life would never be normal. She needed someone at her side who could fight with her, who could know her soul and truly understand her life, her struggles, her pain, her warrior’s spirit. She needed a champion, a hero, not an accountant or a car salesman. Not even a soldier seemed able to fully grasp what it was to be her. She needed someone like her, preternatural, a true warrior, a champion – someone who could fully comprehend what her Calling meant and understand, or at least forgive, the decisions she was forced to make. Hard decisions always fell on her shoulders, decisions that put the safety of the world above all else – usually above her own safety, often above friends and family, even, at times, above love.

_Please, Spike, please don’t let that be it._

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Sam met them at the visitor’s entrance when they arrived early the next morning, handing each of them a little ‘visitor’ badge to clip on their shirts. The soldier was looking good, Buffy thought. Her wounds had all healed, at least the ones Buffy could see, her nose was relatively straight, and the limp was gone. She looked strong and seemed to be back to top fighting condition.

“I’m sorry it took so long to get here,” Buffy apologized again, following the soldier down a long hallway. “I hope he hasn’t been too much trouble?”

“No, not too much, but he’s getting impatient with the stalling. He does kind of go in and out of lucidness, though,” Sam explained. “I really don’t know what happened to him.”

“Neither do we,” Buffy admitted.

“So, is Finn around?” Buffy wondered a little worriedly. She really didn’t want to deal with him right now. She may actually kill him if he started his righteous, ‘I told you so’ act with her at this moment. “He didn’t happen to get kidnapped by a Yeti in Nepal or anything, did he?”

Sam snorted. “No, no Yeti sightings this time. I sent him to debrief a squad in Mexico City. He’ll be gone a couple of days,” Sam told them. “He was getting a little too curious about my odd disappearances. I didn’t want to have to … well, I just thought it would be better if he had something else to do for a while. He was … less than pleased, but he went.”

“So, you didn’t chip Spike up, right?” Dawn asked.

“No. Willow said not to until I heard definitely from you,” Sam answered as she led them deeper into the headquarters building.

“Has he ... vamped out since he’s been here?” Buffy wondered.

Sam shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“How did he even find you here? I mean, how did he even know you were back from Nepal?” Buffy asked, following the soldier down the long hallway.

Sam dug in the pocket of her khakis and extracted a small, worn, dirty piece of paper and handed it to Buffy. It was Sam’s card that she’d given out to each of the Scoobies, plus Spike and Buffy, before the soldier left. It had her personal cell phone number on it.

“He called me,” Sam explained. “I found that in the pocket of his jeans.”

Buffy’s brows went up. “Was Spike in or out of them at the time?” the Slayer asked sourly.

“Out … they were torn to shreds – I think the only thing holding them together was dirt and blood. I gave him some fatigues to put on,” the soldier explained, not seeming to detect the note of suspicious jealousy in Buffy’s voice.

Buffy frowned but nodded, looking at the card. He surely hadn’t had that in his pocket all this time, had he? He must’ve picked it up as he left the crypt that night. Had he already known then that he was going to try to get the chip put back in? If he’d had the wherewithal to think that far ahead, he hadn’t been completely out of his mind, but he still didn’t even say goodbye or talk to her about any of it or give her a chance to help him. That possibility made her heart hurt just that much more, that he didn’t trust her enough – or love her enough? – to even talk to her about any of it.

“I want to show you something, though, before I take you to him,” the soldier explained, stopping in front of a door with a sign over it that said, ‘Radiology’.

Sam pushed the door open and led the two girls inside. The room was empty at this early hour. Sam flipped on the light and then went through another door into a room with computers and monitors lined up along one wall. She sat down and tapped out a few things on the keyboard, bringing up a PET scan of a brain on the monitor.

“See this?” she asked, rolling back a little in her chair to let them closer to the monitor.

“Yeah…” Buffy answered uncertainly. “What is it?”

“Spike’s brain,” Sam replied. “I told Spike we had to do this before implanting a chip; it was really just a stalling tactic, I didn’t expect to see anything on it.”

“It’s all black, except that one spot,” Dawn observed, pointing to an area that was about an inch in diameter in the frontal lobe. The center of the spot it was bright red, then it slowly faded into oranges and pinks near the edge.

“We know from … _previous research_ ,” Sam said delicately, “that a vampire brain should be black on a PET scan. Whatever allows them to think, talk, move, and so on, it isn’t the same as a human, it doesn’t show up as anything on a scan.”

“So, what’s that?” Buffy asked, looking at the soldier.

“Good question.”

“Which you have no answer to,” Buffy surmised.

Sam shook her head. “I had one of our mystics take a look at him. He thought there had been something implanted in Spike’s brain, in the frontal lobe. That part of the brain controls reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving. It’s not something physical there that could be removed with an operation, but something is making that light up. I’m guessing it’s somehow been changed with magic, maybe actually brought back to life? We don’t know.

“I asked Spike about it during a moment of sanity, and he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“Why would someone want to change part of Spike’s brain?” Dawn wondered.

No answer was forthcoming.

Buffy bit her bottom lip. Is this what he had done? And, if so, what is ‘ _this’_?  “Can you print that out for me so I can show Willow? Maybe she can use her research superpower and figure it out.”

“Sure,” Sam agreed, pressing a button on the keyboard that set a printer whorling to life behind them.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

When they had the printout, Sam took them outside and loaded them into an electric-powered personnel transport vehicle – okay, it was an Army-green golf cart with two bench seats, one facing front and one facing back. Dawn took the rumble seat.

As they rode across the base to the disused barracks where Spike was being hidden, Buffy asked the soldier, “So, have you spent much time with Spike?”

Sam shook her head. “No, I just go by to check on him three or four times a day. Sometimes he’s lucid, sometimes not. I don’t usually stay long, just bring him a book or magazine or whatever he wanted to eat. If he’s lucid sometimes I’ll stay longer and talk to him, but he won’t tell me what’s going on, where he’s been or anything. He just said it was a top-secret mission and I should stop asking, cos it was above my pay grade.”

Buffy snorted. “Apparently, it’s above my pay grade, too,” she muttered dourly. “Did he say why he wanted the chip put back in?” Buffy asked next.

Sam shrugged. “He said it was so you could sleep at night. I tried to find out what that meant, but he went back to saying I didn’t have clearance for that information. Did he … did something happen?”

Buffy drew her brows together, her lips pursed in thought. She could practically feel Dawn stiffen in the seat behind them, even though they were not touching. “It’s … it’s not my story to tell, it’s Spike’s. I’m sure when he’s calmed down a bit, he’ll tell you.”

Sam arched a suspicious brow at her. “Should I be worried about having him here?”

Buffy shook her head. “No … I … he’s.… No,” she stammered, honestly unsure since she didn’t know what he’d done or his state of mind. That last letter from him made her more than a little worried about both.

“That was less than convincing,” Sam pointed out.

“Well, he hasn’t hurt you, has he? Or tried to leave his hiding place on his own?” Buffy countered.

“No,” Sam admitted.

“So, it’s fine … clearly,” Buffy concluded. Not wanting to be questioned further on that subject, Buffy asked, “What has he been eating? Blood?”

Sam shook her head again. “He’s never asked for any, thank goodness. I’d have a hard time explaining that request to the Unit Supply Officer. Mostly, he wants hot wings and either beer or whiskey.”

Buffy’s stomach knotted tighter. _That doesn’t mean anything_ , she told herself. _He’s only been here a couple of days, it doesn’t mean he’s not a vampire._

They pulled up in front of a long, rusty Quonset hut – a metal building that looked like someone had buried a huge, metal pipe in the ground lengthwise, leaving only half of it curving above the soil, then closing the ends. There had once been windows on either side of the front door, but they’d long been boarded over. There were no windows or doors along the sides at all. It looked like a good, sunless place to stash a vampire.

Sam used a shoulder against the door to bang it open, the hinges having rusted tight over years of disuse. The inside of the barrack was pitch black, except for the light coming in from the door. Sam flipped a light switch and about one-quarter of the lights came on, some flickering feebly, creating pools of light ringed by darkness. Scattered debris littered the floor, including some old cots and foot lockers, and a thick layer of dust.

“Cozy,” Buffy commented, stepping inside.

“Safe,” Sam shrugged, pointing to the far wall of the building where several cots had been turned on their sides forming a short wall. “He’s back there.”

“Could you stay here with Dawn and let me talk to him alone first?” Buffy asked the soldier.

“Sure, we’ll just … wait outside.”

Dawn made a noise of disagreement in her throat.

“Just let me talk to him first, Dawnie, okay? I don’t want to spook him. Let me try to find out what’s going on,” Buffy requested, looking at her sister. “Then you can see him and tell him what a selfish bitch I am, okay?”

Dawn rolled her eyes and sighed but stepped back out of the door into the sun. Sam pulled the door closed with an effort, and the metal building turned silent.

Buffy stood still inside the doorway a moment and closed her eyes, concentrating on her spidey-sense. After a moment, she took a deep breath and let out a sigh of relief. He was still a vampire, at least – she could feel him clearly. She walked slowly towards the back of the room, not wanting to startle him. Her shoes echoed in the nearly empty building, announcing her approach.

“New tricks, is it?” Spike’s voice rang from the semi-darkness ahead of her. “I hear yoouu,” he sing-songed. “Smell ya, feel ya, too – nice parlor trick, but you’re not her. Could never be her. Why don’t you bugger off and leave a bloke alone? Told ya before, it’s stayin’ in my pants. Not yours – hers!”

“Spike, it’s Buffy,” she called softly, getting near enough to see into the darkness inside the short confines of the cots. Spike had made a nest, which measured about six feet by six feet, out of the thin, musty mattresses, layering them, crisscrossing them to form a soft bed, stacking some higher in places to make a backrest to lean against. There were some books and magazines littering the area, a couple of empty whiskey bottles and lots of beer bottles, also empty.

He was dressed in Army fatigues, green camouflage pants and a plain green t-shirt. His hair was disheveled, his curls wild and untamed. He still had his own boots on and a couple of silver rings on his fingers, but that seemed to be the extent of his previous attire still with him.

“No, told ya before. I know Buffy, and you’re not ‘er! Buffy’s the sun, you’re a bloody black hole.

“What are you daft? Not a black hole. Not from space, what d’ya think? Been invaded by bloody aliens?” he argued with himself. “From beneath. Evil. Still black, though. Yeah, that’s true enough, I suppose … black. Funny color, black. Laugh riot, I reckon. Not funny like that, you git. Have you seen my crayons? Not the blue, you wanker! I need the red one t’ finish.”

Buffy bit her lip and stepped over the short wall, into his space. She set the bag she’d been carrying down gently, watching him a little warily. He was sitting cross-legged, bent over a food tray in his lap, drawing something on a piece of paper. There were no crayons, just a pencil. “Spike?”

“DIDN’T I TELL YOU TO SOD OFF?!” he screamed, finally looking up at her.

Buffy jerked back at the sudden outburst, but quickly restored her façade of cool and calm. “It’s me. It’s Buffy,” she told him again, stepping forward slowly as if approaching a spooked horse, her boots sinking into the layers of mattresses with each step.

Spike narrowed his eyes at her warily, studying her intensely, but at least not yelling any longer.

“Can I … sit down?” she asked, waving a hand at the floor in front of him.

“Guests get the good china with the blue periwinkles. I’ll send for tea, shall I? Mother will be so pleased, rarely have guests anymore,” he invited. “Not since … _you know_ ,” he added confidentially.

“Not since what?” Buffy wondered, lowering down slowly in front of him, mirroring his cross-legged pose.

He leaned forward and whispered, “I cured her.”

Buffy lifted her brows. “Was she sick?”

“Dreadfully.”

“How did you cure her?”

Spike raised a finger to his lips and made a ‘shhhh’ sound. “Tea’s cold, biscuits are stale.”

Buffy frowned, but asked, “Spike, when was the last time you fed?”

Spike’s brow wrinkled in concentration and he began counting off on his fingers. Buffy watched, her worry growing as he just continued to count off, going from one hand to the other and back again. He must be up to fifty by now.

Finally, he looked up and said, “Yesterday.”

Buffy blinked. “You fed yesterday? On who?”

Spike tilted his head, giving her a curious look. “Not sure. Didn’t ask a name. Just ate.”

Buffy’s mouth fell open a moment. “Where are they now?”

Spike looked around the area, as if searching, then looked down and patted his stomach. “Here, I reckon.”

“You ate … a whole person?” Buffy asked, her face a mask of worry and confusion.

“Don’t be daft. Ate a hotdog, with mustard and relish. Relish wasn’t Siberian, gave me gas,” Spike confided.

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing her body to relax.

“Spike, when was the last time you had blood?”

Spike furrowed his brows again, concentrating. He scratched his head, then tapped a finger on his forehead, but gave her no answer. He finally looked up at her, and his gaze softened, as if seeing her for the first time.

“Buffy?”

“Yeah, Spike, it’s me,” she assured him, reaching out to touch his hand.

He watched her hand with wide eyes as it moved slowly toward him, his body frozen in place like a statue. When her warm hand touched down atop his, he lifted his gaze up, wide-eyed and full of shock and awe.

“Buffy?” he asked again, his chest constricting tightly as lucidity returned and realization set in.

“I’m here now,” she cooed assuringly, squeezing his hand lightly.

“I dreamed I killed you,” he whispered. “At least, I thought they were dreams. So many times, so many ways. I wasn’t sure.”

“Why did you kill me?” Buffy asked gently.

Spike leaned nearer to her, as if to impart a secret, and she leaned forward also. “I’ll tell you in another life, when we’re both cats,” he whispered.

“What?” Buffy questioned sharply, sitting back.

“What?” Spike replied also pulling back, mimicking her.

“Spike, concentrate, okay? Talk to me,” Buffy urged softly.

“Oh, God, Buffy … it hurts so much,” he cried, pulling her hand up onto his chest to press against his unbeating heart. “It’s too bright. Buffy, please make it stop. Please,” he begged, closing his eyes and holding back the tears that threatened to fall.

“What’s too bright, Spike? Tell me so I can fix it,” she prompted, laying her palm flat against his chest.

“The light! It’s inside, so deep! Can’t get away from it. Can’t switch it off. Can’t cut it out. Can’t cry it out. Can’t drown it in whiskey. Drove the darkness back, but left the bones, the blood, the screams – so many screams!  But it’s too bright! It’s burning me! Buffy … make it stop!” he pleaded. “Please turn it off.”

“Oh, Spike … what have you done?” she murmured, quickly moving over to sit beside him. She pulled him against her and hugged him tightly, the drawing and tray slipping off his lap and onto the soft bedding.  She rocked him gently in her arms, letting him sob against her, whispering soothing assurances against his ear until he finally quieted and dropped into an exhausted sleep.

“What have you done?” she whispered to the empty room, closing her eyes to stem the flood of sorrow that threatened.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike jumped to wakefulness in her arms only a few minutes later, pulling back out of her embrace and looking around frantically, trying to get his bearings.

“Are you okay, baby?” Buffy asked, laying a hand down on his arm.

He looked down at her hand, then up at her, then back down, unable to hold her gaze. “Please don’t hate me, pet,” he whispered. “Know I broke m’ promise, know I’m a monster.”

“Spike, I don’t hate you,” she assured him, squeezing his arm gently and leaning forward, trying to make him look up at her, to see the truth in her eyes. “I love you.”

Spike shook his head, not looking up at her. “No, you don’t, but thanks for saying it.”

Buffy felt like she’d been physically slapped, and tears sprang to her eyes, hot and stinging, her heart wrenching painfully in her chest as if being bodily ripped apart. “Spike,” she pleaded. “I know … I know I made mistakes, but, Spike, please. I fought the light, like I promised. I came back … _for you_. And I really did try to find you after … after you left. I tried … I’m … sorry, I know I let you down. But, I’m here now. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Spike continued looking down, shame making him incapable of meeting her eyes. “Know you can’t forgive me for what I did. Told me before, and you were right, I’m beneath you. Not worthy of you. I know it, ya don’t have to pretend.”

“I’m _not_ pretending,” Buffy retorted, growing more determined and a little cross. “Do you think this is a game for me? Spike, do you have any idea how hard this is? How hard those words are for me to say? I lose everyone I love … or have you not been following along with the epic tragedy of Buffy’s life? Cos I haven’t missed a single episode! No matter what Giles thinks, I know I’m cursed, and, frankly, I’m fucking tired of it!

“I _tried_ to _not_ love you,” she admitted, her voice impassioned, intense. “I tried for _weeks_ to not love you, to forget you, to accept my fate, my curse, my destiny. I tried to exorcise you from my heart, tried to bury you beneath the wreckage, I tried cutting you out and crying you out! I tried to lose myself in slaying, tried to pretend nothing existed but that. I tried everything, all the tricks – and I know a lot of them!

“Look at me! Spike, damn it, look at me!” she insisted, taking his chin between her fingers, forcibly lifting it up and turning him to face her.

“I. Love. You,” she repeated when he finally met her gaze. “I am not going to lose you. I fucking refuse. I will not let you run away again!” Buffy paused then, a horrible thought occurring to her, making the anguish inside her boil with cold fear. “Unless you really, honestly don’t love me. Tell me that – tell me you don’t love and that you never want to see me again. Look in my eyes right now and tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll go.”

Spike closed his eyes and shook his head. “You know I love you, infinitely. Never stop loving you, Buffy. But how could you still love me?” he asked, tears leaking again from beneath his lashes. “I’m a bad, bad man. The things I’ve done—”

“Are done,” Buffy finished for him forcefully, that roiling fear lessening in her belly and chest. “They’re in the past and they are forgiven. I forgive you.”

“Why … how?” he wondered solemnly, opening his eyes and looking at her through a shimmering haze of tears.

Buffy released his chin and laid her palm gently on his cheek. “Because, I see now, of the two of us, you’re the better one, you’re the kinder one, and you make me want to be better, to be worthy of your love. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you now. I know you didn’t want me to see … to see your deepest darkness, but I have, and I still love you. I love what you are, what you do, how you try... I've seen your kindness, your passion, and your strength, and I know exactly what you are: a good man, a loving man, the other half of my soul.

“I believe in you, Spike. And even more importantly, I believe in _us_.”

Spike closed his eyes and let the tears that had welled in them slip down his cheeks, flowing in the tracks of the millions that came before. He could only shake his head slowly back and forth in denial of her words.

“Do you trust me?” Buffy asked him softly, moving her hand down to gently rest on his arm.

“With my life,” he answered without opening his eyes.

“Then trust me when I tell you that we’ll get through this, together. Whatever it is, whatever you’ve done, we can get through it.”

Spike blinked his eyes open and stared at her with a mixture of overwhelming awe and disbelief. “I did it for you, Buffy. I knew you’d never touch me again, but I couldn’t bear to see hatred in your eyes. I thought … thought you could sleep at night knowin’ … knowin’ I had it. Maybe not hate me.”

“The chip?” Buffy asked.

Spike nodded, then shook his head. “The chip. My soul.”

Buffy strangled back a surprised exclamation, her eyes going wide a moment, before saying softly, “Oh, baby, you’ve always had a soul. A spark, a fire fighting the darkness, it was growing – I showed you.”

“It died when you died,” he told her forlornly, looking back down at her hand resting on his arm. “I couldn’t feel the spark – didn’t need it then, did I? You were ripped from me. Then, there you were – back, alive. An angel lookin’ at the devil, at evil itself … at _me_. Had t’ find it again, didn’t I? Couldn’t let you hate me, couldn’t bear it.”

Buffy shook her head, tears shimmering in her own eyes. “I know. I saw it, in the crypt when you …” she let her voice trail off, leaving his attack on her in the crypt unsaid. “But, Spike, maybe we could’ve fixed it, healed it, like Tara fixed me, started again. But you ran away. I tried to find you, Spike – I really tried.”

Spike shook his head morosely. “Couldn’t let ya find me. Terrified you’d see … see _me_. But now … it’s so bright. God, Buffy … Angel never said how much it _burns_.”

Buffy sighed sorrowfully. “What did you do, how did you … how did it get too bright?” she asked.

Spike shrugged. “Saw a man about a girl. I went to seek a legend out. Traveled to the other side of the world, made a deal with a demon.”

“What was the deal? What did you pay, Spike?”

“There were trials, torture, pain and suffering... you know, the usual,” he replied flippantly.

Buffy nodded gravely, recognizing his automatic defenses rising. “And the terms? Are there stipulations on your soul now?”

“Think I’m daft?” he challenged, looking up briefly before dropping his gaze again. “Not Angel, am I?” he spat. “Paid the price up front. In blood, in torment and anguish, in screams and death. Paid in full with my flesh, with my bloody sanity.”

“Oh, Spike, you didn’t have to do this. I wish you had trusted me to help you heal,” she sighed plaintively.

“Was so afraid, Buffy. So afraid of what you’d think of me. Swear, I can take a lot, but … not your scorn. Not again. Not after… everything,” he explained, still not looking at her.

“I never blamed you, Spike. I understand the darkness, remember? And I know how it can be overwhelming, especially when someone you love is threatened … when you think they’ve been murdered.  Xander should’ve found you, let you know they found a way to heal me, then none of this would’ve happened.”

“Don’t blame the whelp, Buffy. All he wanted were the wanker’s guts. But that would’ve been too fast, too easy. The rest was me, the screams, the agony, the torture, it was all me.”

“He … _what_?” Buffy asked, her brows knitting together.

Spike looked up then, meeting her eyes, the realization that he’d let something slip that he shouldn’t have showing clearly on his expressive face. “Nothin’. It was me, Buffy. I did it all. The blood’s on my hands.”

“It’s okay. I think there’s enough blood to go around,” she assured him dourly.

Spike sighed and looked back down at his legs, which he had straight out in front of him now as he leaned back against the pile of mattresses against the wall. He ran a thoughtful hand over his camouflage pants, considering for a few moments.

“Can I ask ya something?” he asked finally.

“Sure, anything.”

“Did I join the Army?” he wondered, looking back up at her, his brows knit in uncertainty, his blue eyes full of confusion.

Buffy barked out a short, ironic laugh. “No, but I don’t think Sam would have any objections to letting you _serve_ _under her_ ,” she informed him sarcastically.

Spike raised his brows. “Jokes now, is it? I’ll have you know I kept it in m’ pants, and no hands down there either.”

“Not even your own?” Buffy continued in a softer, teasing tone.

Spike shrugged. “Well … don’t recall that being one of your provisos.”

Buffy lifted up onto her knees from her seated position and swung a leg over his to sit on his lap, facing him. She wrapped her arms gently around his neck and leaned in to touch a soft kiss to his lips.

“I love you, Spike,” she whispered against his mouth, relived that there were sparks of the old Spike still there, and hopeful that she could help him through this, to heal, to be himself again fully.

Spike dropped his forehead, resting it on her shoulder, and closed his eyes. “Please help me,” he begged, wrapping his arms around her as a sob wracked his body. “Buffy, it hurts.”

“We’ll fix it,” Buffy whispered against his ear, hugging him to her tightly. “I promise, Spike.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: More of Spike’s reunion with the Summers’ girls. What is that bright red spot in Spike’s brain? Probably everyone can guess, but Buffy doesn’t know. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously wonderful -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally astounding! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	46. Trigger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dawn and Buffy have brought something special for Spike, but an uninvited guest ruins the party.

 

Dawn threw herself into Spike’s arms –  literally –  driving him back a step on the cushioned floor of his nest when she hit him.

“I’ve been so worried about you!” she wailed, hugging him tight enough to make even a vampire wince a little.

Spike hugged her back more gently, unable to speak for several long moments, completely overwhelmed. How was this possible? How could she bear to look at him, let alone touch him? Hadn’t she seen? Had he imagined her there in the crypt that horrible night?

“Sorry, Nibblet,” he croaked, his voice cracking with the strain of his emotions as he closed his eyes, trying to remember.

Dawn squeezed him harder as Spike ran that night back through his mind. He’d run it over and over like a bad movie during the previous months and was sure he knew every word, every look, every gasp and tear by heart. Had he been wrong? Had she not actually been there? Had she not seen?

He was so certain he’d lost them both, and now … had he not lost either of them?

Spike swallowed hard, trying to stay in control of his rampaging emotions. He cleared his throat before speaking again, trying to sound normal, as if he weren’t drowning in pure and utter joy. This must be what a convicted man on death row feels like if he is suddenly exonerated and released. “Didn’t mean t’ worry ya. Sent letters, didn’t Buffy tell ya?”

Dawn let go of him finally and stepped back, wiping her tear-filled eyes, but unable to stop smiling at the same time. Spike was here! He looked fine – a little disheveled, but fine! “Buffy’s not big on sharing when she’s in Egypt,” Dawn revealed.

Spike’s brow furrowed. “Buffy was in Egypt?”

“Yeah, the land of de-Nile,” Dawn quipped dourly, making Buffy roll her eyes from where she stood a short distance away.

“Oh, right,” he acknowledged, still fighting hard to simply contain his joy – Dawn had been worried about him! Dawn was here, talking to him like … like he wasn’t a monster. “Been on the receiving end o’ that myself,” he admitted.

“I’m sorry, Dawn. So bloody sorry. Didn’t mean …” Spike choked on the words, this heart rising up into his throat and trapping the words. There were so many things he was sorry for! Where to even start? Finally, he settled on, “Didn’t mean to worry you, pet.”

“You’re forgiven,” she allowed, giving him a friendly punch in the arm, either missing or ignoring the crack in his façade. “Just don’t do it again.”

“Scout’s honor,” Spike promised, lifting up his right hand with three fingers raised.

“Why do I not believe you were a Boy Scout?” Dawn asked suspiciously.

“Well, always meant t’ be. Do ya think I’m too old now?” Spike asked, forcing a light, teasing tone.

“Ummm … like two centuries maybe?”

“Oi! Not that old! What is it with you Summers girls thinkin’ I’m a doddering old relic ready for the geriatric ward?” Spike objected, the lightness becoming a bit more real now, almost natural again.

Dawn sighed out a breath of utter relief. He really was okay! He was still Spike! She stepped forward and wrapped him in another tight hug. “I missed you so much,” she cried against his chest. “I love you, Spike.”

Spike smoothed her long hair with one hand, returning the hug with the other. “I love you too, Dawnie,” he whispered, clamping his eyes closed to stop the never-ending tears that welled in them once again.

Buffy had told him that Dawn was here with her, and that she’d not blamed him for what he’d done to Warren, but he didn’t really believe it, not until now.

How could he possibly deserve the love and forgiveness they were showering him with? He wondered if he’d awake from this dream soon … he was very afraid he would.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy watched from a few feet away as Spike and Dawn reconnected. Far enough to give them a little privacy, but not so far that she couldn’t step in if his crackers started to crumble. As their hug broke, she approached with a thermos from her bag that they’d brought with them.

Dawn saw her and turned a bright smile on Spike. “We brought you something to … help with whatever’s going on,” she explained.

“Did ya, then?” Spike looked up at Buffy and saw the thermos. “What might that be? A nice smoothie of pulverized weeds and kale guts, is it?”

Dawn giggled girlishly, taking the thermos from Buffy’s hands and inviting Spike to sit down in his make-shift comfy chair on the sea of mattresses. Dawn sat across from him and Buffy sat to one side, forming a small semi-circle in the dim light of his nest.

“Blood,” Dawn corrected him, taking the top off the thermos and pouring a good portion into the dual-purpose cap/cup combination.

“It’s a special, proprietary blend,” she told him. “See if you can tell.”

Spike furrowed his brows, but took the proffered plastic coffee mug, lifting it up to his nose to inhale the aroma of it.

“I don’t think it’s quite as warm as you like it,” Buffy apologized. “Long trip from Sunnydale, even in a thermos.”

Spike’s demon rose unbidden when the scent hit him, a reaction he could no more control in that moment than the deep lust for blood that surged through him. “Summers blood…” he murmured. “Slayer and Key.”

Dawn looked at Buffy, a little show of alarm in her eyes at the sight of the demon, which she had rarely seen, but Buffy shook her head, silently assuring her it was okay.

Spike took a slow sip, savoring the blend of the two girls’ blood on his tongue. The smooth fire and passion of his Slayer mingled with the bright, hot bursts of magical creation from her sister, filling him with a moment of peace that he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. He wanted to fall into that peace, to drown in it. For that moment the screams stopped, the mountains of bones and rivers of blood of his victims faded like a bad dream, and he felt the weight on his heart lift for the first time since he’d crawled out of that cave in Africa, half-mad, beaten, broken, and bloodied.

He dearly wanted it to last, to just sip this healing nectar for hours or even days, but his demon was ravenous and took the remaining down in one long, greedy gulp. Spike held the empty cup out toward Dawn for a refill, his yellow, demon eyes intent on her, pleading.

Buffy had seen that same look in Spike’s blue eyes before, in fact, she’d seen it just a few minutes ago, but never in the demon’s.  She felt her heart constrict at the sight. Spike’s demon was strong, it was cunning and ruthless and more than a little twisted, it sought out Slayers, hunted them, fought at least three, killed two. _It didn’t plead_. How much pain must be inside him to bring even his demon to its knees?

Dawn looked at Buffy for permission and Buffy give her a slight nod to go ahead and refill it. There were only two pints, one from Dawn and one from her, and she’d thought they could spread it out, save some for the trip home, but if he needed more now, then he should have it.

He drank the second cup a bit more slowly, trying to savor not only the flavor but the relief it gave him. His demon faded back as he drank, letting Spike’s expressive human face resurface.

“Better?” Buffy asked when he’d finished that cup, and Spike nodded.

“It helps … it helps with the pain,” he told her, eyeing the thermos in Dawn’s hand and calculating exactly how much more was in there. He could ascertain from long experience, that he’d downed exactly fourteen and three-quarters ounces. Assuming there were two pints to start with meant seventeen and a quarter—

“Maybe we better save the rest?” Buffy suggested, interrupting his calculations. “For when it gets worse.”

Spike bit his bottom lip to keep from screaming, ‘NO! GIVE IT TO ME!’, but finally nodded, handing the cup back to Dawn.

Dawn looked at it and made a face, not wanting to put the bloody cup back on top of the thermos.

“Let’s rinse it out with some whiskey,” Buffy suggested, seeing her hesitation.

“’Fraid I’m out, luv,” Spike confessed, looking around at the empty bottles strewn here and there.

“I’m not,” Buffy assured him, rising and going over to get the bag she’d brought with her from Sunnydale.

She brought the duffle over to their small circle and sat down next to it, digging down to get the bottle, which had worked its way to the bottom. Spike saw glints of silver chain in the depths of the bag and heard the glass ‘clink’ against metal as Buffy pulled it out.

He raised a brow at her in inquiry when she looked back up and she shrugged.

‘ _You brought our restraints_ ,’ was the silent, quirked brow, observation.

‘ _I didn’t know what I’d find. Your last letter was from Crazytown_ ,’ the shrugging reply.

Spike nodded agreement as Buffy poured some of the whiskey in the cup and Dawn swirled it around before handing it back to the vampire.

“The good stuff, I see,” he approved, seeing the blue label on the bottle.

“Only the best for my boyfriend,” Buffy agreed with a small, slightly sad smile.

Spike stopped, the cup nearly to his lips and stared at her, his eyes narrowing in silent question. Was he still her boyfriend? After all he’d done? After torturing the nerd? After breaking his promise? After running like a ponce?

Buffy widened her smile reassuringly, lifting a hand up to touch the infinity necklace at her throat. “Till your last day on this Earth and beyond,’” she quoted. “Wasn’t that what you said?”

Spike bit his bottom lip and nodded slowly, before draining the whiskey from the cup, his heart feeling lighter by the moment. Was it her words that had done it or the blood? Or both? Whatever it was, he hoped it would stay.

Dawn yawned widely, bringing her hand up to cover it belatedly.

“You drove through the night,” he deduced, looking at Buffy. “When’s the last time ya slept?”

“Nineteen ninety-five?” she guessed tiredly.

“Have a rest, yeah?” he invited, waving a hand at the dirty, if relatively soft, layer of mattresses.

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Dawn agreed immediately, laying over on her side and squirming slightly to find a comfortable position.

Buffy looked at Spike with concern. “Are you going to be okay?”

Spike shrugged. “Feel better now, after the blood. ‘Preciate it. Ya didn’t have to.”

“Do you think I’d come to rescue you from Sam’s clutches empty handed?” she teased.

Spike smiled back at her, but it didn’t reach his eyes, which remained filled with melancholy. “Only vixen with their claws in me is you, luv,” he assured her seriously, not reflecting her lighter tone back.

“As it should be,” Buffy affirmed, then leaned over and touched a kiss to his lips. He tasted of whiskey, warm and smooth, and the taste lingered on her lips when she pulled back.

“You told the bit about her blood,” he observed softly, looking at Dawn who had fallen asleep almost immediately.

“I had to … well, I … it was the right thing to do. She loves you too, Spike, and she was so worried about you. I had to tell her so it could be her choice, so she knew just how much she’d helped you before and how much she might be able to help you now.”

Spike nodded, reaching out to smooth a lock of Dawn’s long hair back from her face.

“She’s a good lass, got a good heart, like her sis,” Spike revealed, looking back up at Buffy.

“Well, there might be some question about _my_ heart but … yeah, hers is like yours, Spike. She feels things deeply – good and bad. It doesn’t always lead down the best roads, but she follows it. Honestly, there’s something to be said for that. Knowing your heart and being able to follow it is a gift.”

“Or a curse,” Spike added with a wan smile.

“To-may-to, to-mah-to,” Buffy quipped before a yawn escaped her, as well.

Spike reached up and touched Buffy’s hair, his sorrowful eyes following his hand from the side of her face down the length of it past her shoulders. “Hair’s gotten long,” he observed absently, allowing his fingers to linger in the soft spun gold.

She nodded solemnly.

“How long … how long was I gone?” he asked, shifting his gaze from her tresses to her concerned, green eyes.

“You don’t know?” Buffy asked, her brow furrowing in concern.

Spike shrugged with one shoulder, his fingers still caressing her hair gently. “Long enough fer your hair to grow,” he deduced. “Sometimes it seems like a long-ago dream – you and me – like it might’ve never happened at all; other times feels like I was just touching you, holding you, loving you a minute ago.”

Buffy swallowed hard and nodded. “It was a hundred and forty-seven days yesterday. But who’s counting?”

Spike’s eyes softened, the sorrow in their depths intensifying. “I’m sorry I made ya count, luv.”

Buffy blinked back a sudden rush of hot tears. “I guess … I guess it was just my turn,” she suggested soberly before another yawn arose, unable to be stifled.

“Have a nip o’ sleep, pet,” Spike suggested again, releasing her hair and holding his arm open to her invitingly.

Buffy shifted to sit next to him, snuggling against him and into his embrace. She laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion ganging up on her resolve.

“Maybe just a minute,” she agreed before she succumbed to the fatigue and her body relaxed against him.

“Or two,” Spike added softly, touching a kiss to the top of her head as he held her. The pain was returning, but with Buffy at his side he knew he could stand it. He could stand anything with her next to him.

She didn’t hate him. She still loved him. After all he’d done, she was here. Next to him. In his arms. Soothing his tortured soul and easing his broken heart. How that was possible, he honestly couldn’t fathom, but he refused to look a gift horse in the mouth.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Well, isn’t that just the sweetest thing ever?” came the sarcastic male voice from the shadows outside Spike’s little sanctuary of cots.

Spike jerked, his eyes narrowing at the uninvited guest. He carefully slipped out from under Buffy, laying her sleeping form down gently against the bedding he’d arranged, and stalked toward the source of the voice.

“Shut the bloody hell up,” he seethed, sotto voce. “No one asked you.”

Spike stepped over the cot-fence and strode purposely away from the sleeping girls, his visitor following.

“Awww, they’re just so cute, though,” Angel teased, looking back over his shoulder at the two still forms. “Like a couple of little kittens all curled up in their beddy-byes.”

“What the bloody hell d’ ya want now?” Spike demanded in a low, angry voice, whirling on him.

“I just had to see it for myself. William the Bloody, tamed by the shrew,” Angel taunted. “Oh, how the evil have fallen. Did she castrate you, too?”

“Not fallen, not tamed, definitely not castrated, you bloody wanker,” Spike growled, stepping toward his grandsire, but Angel seemed to move faster than even a vampire, appearing behind Spike in the next instant.

“Tsk, tsk,” the dark vampire reproached. “Mustn’t let that temper get the better of you, Willie boy … not until it’s time. Which, I’m feeling will be very soon.”

“What are you on about?” Spike questioned, turning back around to face Angel.

“She knows things she shouldn’t,” Angel explained, tilting his head back toward the sleeping Slayer. “That’s a problem.”

“What things might that be?” Spike wondered, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Angel shrugged. “Things,” he answered vaguely. “She might be able to unravel my plans with the knowledge. So, my use for you has changed. You’re going into the lineup sooner than expected.”

“No one makes use of me! Got m’ soul, free will and all that rot!” Spike asserted.

Angel smiled malevolently. “Of course you do, Spike. Now, be a good boy and take them out – both of them. All the Slayer blood you want, straight from the tap. Oh, and the girl … still a virgin? Yummy!”

Spike scowled at Angel, ready to ask what the bloody hell he was on about, when his grandsire began humming, and then singing a gentle, old folk song, “[ _Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard a maid sing in the valley below…_ ”](https://youtu.be/cG3Bd51ACLM)

Spike’s demon rose, snarling and growling, blinded by a fury that swelled up from somewhere buried deep inside, from a place he didn’t know was even there.  He lunged first at the apparition of Angel, but the dark vampire was gone. Then he turned his attention to the sleeping kegs of blood – Slayer and Key – at the back of the building. Spike strode across the floor, leaping over debris with grace and power, a single-minded purpose driving him – blood.

_"Oh, don't deceive me, oh never leave me,  
How could you use, a poor maiden so?"_

When he reached the nest of mattresses, he tossed two of the cots lining the perimeter away with a leonine roar, sending them flying into the walls on either side of the building. They clattered loudly, metal against metal, the sound ringing through the building like an untuned bell.

Buffy and Dawn were both jerked awake violently by the reverberating clang. Buffy managed to clear the vestiges of a nightmare about a terrified girl being chased through unfamiliar streets just as Spike dove at her. The vampire’s fangs and claws were poised to rip, to kill; ready to suck her dry and pick his teeth with her bones. 

“SPIKE!” Buffy screamed, rolling to the side the split-second before he landed.

He hit the bedding with a soft thud and bounced once. Roaring in frustration, he leapt back to his feet and began stalking toward the retreating Slayer, who was crab-crawling backwards across the matting.

“Fe, fi, fo, fum. I smell the blood of a nice, ripe… _girl.”_ Spike spun away from Buffy and grabbed Dawn, who had gotten to her feet and was attempting to sneak silently away.

Dawn screamed as Spike whipped her around, pulling her back to his front and pinning her with one supernaturally strong arm across her collarbone.  He dropped his mouth to her neck, inhaling the scent of her magical blood beating just below the surface. That blood they had denied him. That blood that he needed.

“Spike! No!” Buffy screamed, producing a stake from nowhere.

Spike seemed to not even hear the Slayer, so captivated was he with the girl who was struggling madly, her body writhing against him trying to escape. “Time enough for that later, pet. First, just a little taste…”

“SPIKE!” Buffy screamed again, grabbing the hand that was clamped around Dawn’s shoulder and yanking his arm away from her sister. Dawn dropped down to her hands and knees, crying and screaming, and began frantically crawling away from the two supernatural warriors.

Buffy twisted Spike’s wrist and arm, spinning him around and pinning it up behind him painfully. “SPIKE! STOP!” she demanded, lifting a little higher.

But Spike didn’t stop, he bent forward and dove into a rolling somersault on the mats, bringing her with him. The Slayer’s hold on him was dislodged as he rolled lightly back up onto his feet like a Chinese acrobat.

Buffy whipped her body and leapt back to her feet at the same moment Spike spun back around to face her, his demon still growling low and dangerous, deep in his chest.

“No need t’ be jealous, pet. I was gettin’ to you. Got enough for ya both,” he taunted, reaching a hand down to cup his crotch as he began circling to his right.

_“Remember the vows that you made to me truly, remember how tenderly you nestled close to me,”_ Angel’s voice floated through the air, heard only by Spike. Spike began to hum along with the melody, keeping his eyes fixed on the retreating Slayer.

“Spike,” Buffy panted, trying to catch her breath as she matched his movement, keeping the distance between them. “You don’t want to do this.”

“Don’t I, then?” he wondered, still stalking in a slow circle on the soft mattresses, looking for an opening.

“No, you really don’t,” Buffy assured him, stake in hand. And neither did she. “I love you. Do you hear me? Spike, I love you,” she swore fervently.

“Love me t’ dust, I reckon,” he observed, glancing meaningfully at the stake in her hand, then back to her eyes.

Buffy stopped moving, determination steeling her, and dropped the stake. “I love you forever. I’ll love you in our next life, when we’re both cats. I’ll never stop loving you,” she swore vehemently, standing perfectly still as he stalked toward her.

“Mmmm … cats, is it?” he purred just a fraction of an inch from her neck, not touching her at all. “Ever hear cats shagging, luv? Reckon I can make you scream like that?”

“I’m sure you could, Spike. Except for one thing,” Buffy replied, unmoving, barely breathing, his body, his fangs only millimeters from her flesh.

“What’s that, Slayer?”

“Pickles.”

Spike jerked back as if he’d been shot, whirling around and away from her. He clutched at his head with both hands, whether in physical pain or emotional, Buffy couldn’t tell. He screamed like a wounded animal and smashed a fist into the steel wall at the back of his sanctuary. Then another, and another. He banged the wall with unbridled fury and anguish, denting the heavy metal and bloodying his knuckles before Buffy could stop him.

“Spike! Stop! Stop it!” she demanded, grabbing his arms and pulling him away from his unforgiving punching bag.

He fell to his knees in front of her and his demon retreated. He gazed up at her, his blue eyes filled with confusion and fear, his hands, bruised and bloodied, clasped together against his unbeating heart.

“What … what did I do? Buffy …” he looked around frantically, finally seeing Dawn standing a few yards away, a wooden cross clutched in shaking hands. Sam, having charged into the building at the sound of the screams, stood next to her, gun drawn, trained on him.

He looked back up at the Slayer, gripped by a profound guilt he couldn’t explain. “What happened? Where’s Angel?”

Buffy let out a long breath and dropped down in front of him. “Angel? Angel’s not here. You … attacked, just out of the blue.”

“I don’t remember,” he confided. “Did I hurt ya? The bit?”

Buffy looked over at Dawn, then back at him. “No … just scared her.

“What do you remember?” Buffy asked. “What about Angel?”

Spike shook his head, trying to clear it. “Was sitting with you, then Angel started prattling on about his plan for me had changed, and me having all the Slayer blood I want. And you knowin’ things … something about messing up some plan.

“Are ya sure he’s not here?” he asked, looking around again.

Buffy shook her head. “I would know if Angel was here, believe me. So would you, for that matter. Are you sure it was him?”

Spike closed his eyes and tried to think, then shook his head. “Wasn’t him,” he admitted. “Hallucination … like the ones I had of …”

“Me?” Buffy provided, remembering what he said when she first arrived and the ghost who he’d mentioned more than once in his letters.

Spike nodded, his eyes still closed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m goin’ mad. Buffy, please, help me,” he begged, collapsing against her as if all the bones in his body had turned to water.

Buffy wrapped him in a hug and held him, letting him sob against her. She shook her head, unsure how to help him, unsure what was even wrong with him. Why would a renewed soul make him attack them? It made no sense at all.

“We’ll find a way to fix it, Spike. I promise,” she swore, but had no idea how she would keep that promise.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Spike insists that Sam put the chip in him after the unprovoked attack on Buffy and Dawn.
> 
> Song referenced: https://youtu.be/cG3Bd51ACLM “Early One Morning”
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously amaze-balls -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally beyond belief! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	47. What Am I To You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike argues for getting the chip re-inserted.

 

* * *

 

“Just let ‘em put the chip back in like I wanted,” Spike demanded when everyone had calmed down a bit, about half an hour later. “Be safer all around, that way. Figure it’s like wearing two condoms, in case one breaks.”

Spike, Buffy, Dawn, and Sam stood in a circle in the Quonset hut that had been Spike’s sanctuary on the Army base, not far from the scene of the altercation. Dust motes stirred up by the fracas still danced in the shafts of light that were scattered throughout the space, making Dawn sneeze periodically.

“No,” Buffy argued. “It took you nearly getting killed and me threatening bodily harm to Riley to get it out in the first place. I’m not gonna have them put it back in, Spike. We’ll find out the problem and fix it.”

“And if I hurt the bit while you’re figurin’ it out?” Spike questioned, scowling.

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Buffy assured him. “Spike, please trust me. The original reason for removing the chip hasn’t changed. Something is coming, it’s big and it’s bad. I need you at full capacity, not handcuffed by a piece of junk in your brain.”

“What the bloody fuck, Slayer?! If we kill each other, what kinda handicap d’ ya suppose that would be!?” he demanded furiously.

“That. Won’t. Happen,” Buffy ground out determinedly. “Pickles!”

Spike clenched his jaw, making a muscle tic angrily in his cheek, and looked at Sam. “Doesn’t matter what she says. Slayer’s not my keeper. My brain, my decision,” he informed her. “Put the bloody thing back.”

“Spike, I don’t know …” Sam hesitated, looking at Buffy.

“Don’t look at her! Look at me! I’m telling ya, if you let me walk outta here without that bleedin’ chip, any blood I spill will be on your hands!”

“Spike! Stop being a drama queen! There will be no blood,” Buffy assured Sam, rolling her eyes.

“Drama queen, is it? Dawnie, that feel like I was play-acting to you?” he asked, looking at the girl.

Dawn swallowed hard and bit her lip, looking from Spike to Buffy and back again. “I trust you, Spike. I don’t think you really would’ve—”

“OH, BLOODY HELL! What is wrong with you people? Is everyone here very stoned?” Spike demanded, throwing his arms out in frustration.

“Spike, I’ll make you deal,” Buffy negotiated. “If I can’t fix whatever it is in the next ten days, then I’ll personally call Sam and have her arrange it.”

“And what if I kill you before that?” he seethed. “Who’ll bloody stop me then? This shiny new soul seems t’ be a pile of glittering rubbish. The first condom’s already got a gaping big gash in it!”

“Stop with the condoms already!” Buffy demanded in annoyance. “You won’t kill me – first of all, we both know I’m just better than you in a fight,” the Slayer asserted firmly, making Spike snort in disagreement. “And secondly, I think there’s more going on than the soul.”

Buffy pulled out the printout of the PET scan and showed him. “Something’s been screwing with your brain, probably whatever made you attack us. I just need to figure out what, why, and who, and get it evicted from your cranium.”

Spike took the paper from her, narrowing his eyes as he studied it. “Angel said you knew something you shouldn’t, that it was mucking up his plans,” the vampire mused. He looked back up at Buffy. “I wonder if this is what he meant.”

Buffy shrugged, taking the paper back from him and folding it up before tucking it back in her pocket. “I’ll know when I figure out what I know,” she predicted sagely.

Spike snorted, rubbing a hand over his face and through his curls. “Fine. Ten days, not a minute longer,” he agreed, looking back at her. “I’m not playin’ around about it.”

“Neither am I, Spike,” Buffy assured him. “Can we go now?”

Spike shook his head in defeat. “Yeah, I reckon,” he muttered, heading back to his nest of mattresses to get Buffy’s bag, the whiskey, and the thermos of blood.

Buffy turned to the soldier. “Thank you so much for calling me. He’s … been through a lot, and obviously still has a ways to go.”

Sam nodded. “Sure, of course. I told you to call if you needed help.” Sam shrugged. “I guess he did.”

Buffy’s little green-eyed monster flared in her belly, but she stuffed it down – mostly. She knew why he’d gone to Sam, for the chip, that was all. There was no other reason, she told herself. It wasn’t because Sam was nicer or smarter or prettier or taller or brunetter. Still, it hurt Buffy that he hadn’t called her, not once in all the time he’d been gone. He wrote letters, but letters didn’t reply when you asked them questions, no matter how much you shook them or screamed at them. And they took weeks to arrive. Even if she’d read them the day she got them, he would’ve been long gone from the city he’d posted them from.

She still wasn’t sure why he thought he needed a soul _and_ a chip … unless it was the double condom thing. Maybe he thought two layers of ‘protection’ would be better? And who the hell was he using condoms with, anyway? He’s a vampire!

“Yeah, I guess he did,” Buffy finally agreed with the solider dourly, looking back over to watch him get her bag and gather up the books and magazines that Sam had brought him.

When he returned to where the girls were standing, he handed the neatly-stacked collection of magazines and books to Sam. “Best be returnin’ these, I reckon,” he said, giving her a grateful smile. “Thanks for everything.”

Sam took them and nodded. “Sure. No problem, Spike. Anytime.”

The group turned as one and headed across the dusty barracks toward the door. The sun had set about twenty minutes ago. If they left soon, they’d make it back to Sunnydale before dawn, so Spike would be safe on the trip.

Sam conveyed them all back to the main gate on the golf cart, then walked out with them to Buffy’s Jeep, grabbing a package from the guard station as she passed.

“What’s that?” Dawn wondered, eyeing the large box.

“It’s for Spike,” Sam explained as they reached the Jeep and Buffy unlocked the doors.

Spike put the duffel bag in the way-back of the Jeep and turned to Sam, brows furrowed as she handed him the package. “Just open it,” she advised at his questioning look.

Spike shrugged, set the box down in the back of the Jeep and lifted the top. He picked up the item inside, pulling it out of the box for everyone to see.

“Your duster!” Dawn exclaimed.

“Thought it was gone,” Spike murmured, shrugging into it.

“Well, it was pretty beat up and dirty,” Sam explained. “But it’s pretty tough – it can take a lot.”

“Just like Spike!” Dawn beamed. “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking!”

Spike met Buffy’s eyes over Dawn’s head and quirked a suggestive brow at her, making Buffy clear her throat and look away, even as a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Spike could definitely take a licking … and give one. It lightened Buffy’s heart to see him turn that innocent declaration into an innuendo. Despite everything, he was still in there. He was still Spike.

“Ta ever so, pet,” Spike said to Sam, settling the coat on his shoulders. “Can’t really thank you enough for everything you’ve done.”

“What are friends for?” she replied, giving him a smile as she tucked a lock of her long, brunette hair behind her ear.

She stepped up and gave Spike a tight, but friendly, hug, which Spike returned, holding it just a little longer than Buffy thought was necessary.

“We better go, unless you want to arrive as a pile of dust,” Buffy suggested, a little more harshly than was strictly needed.

But Spike still didn’t fully release Sam. Instead, he pulled back just enough to kiss her deeply and fervently. It might’ve been a friendly kiss, if friends planted deep, lingering, ardent kisses with a big dose of tongue on each other’s lips.

Buffy cleared her throat meaningfully. “What. The. Fuck?” she asked in a voice that was too calm to be construed as anything but a threat.

Spike broke the kiss, and released Sam, giving her a smoldering look as he stepped back. “Think I’m bein’ summoned.”

Sam nodded but was at a loss for words, her brown eyes locked on his blue, unable to pull her gaze away.

“Give my love t’ Finn,” Spike quipped, touching a hand lightly to her cheek before turning away and heading for the passenger side of the Jeep.

Sam nodded again, then finally blinked. “Sure…” she muttered, running her tongue across her lips, tasting the lingering burn of whiskey and Spike on them.

Buffy slammed the hatchback of the Jeep shut with a bit too much power, making the whole vehicle lurch, then stalked to the driver’s side. Dawn was already in the backseat, Spike in the passenger seat up front when she got in.

“What the fuck was that?” Buffy growled, starting the engine and putting the Jeep in gear.

“Tell ya in a bit,” Spike assured her as she pulled out onto the highway and headed north.

“Tell me now!” she demanded.

Spike remained silent for about half a minute, then directed her to pull off into an empty parking lot.

“Fine. Start with the talking!” Buffy demanded when she’d stopped the Jeep and put it in ‘Park’.

“Ya need t’ chain me in the way-back, luv,” he told her. “Thought it’d be easier if you were brassed off.”

“Oh, well, mission accomplished!” Buffy seethed. “But why chain you?”

“Think, Slayer! If someone wants you dead, and they’re usin’ me to kill you, just how easy do ya think it would be for me to make ya crash the bleedin’ car going seventy on the motorway?” Spike explained, getting out of the vehicle.

“Do ya know how t’ hogtie someone?” he asked, going to the back of the Jeep.

“Uhh, yeah, I guess?” Buffy answered hesitantly, getting out and following him, her ire draining a little.

“Nibblet, up front, luv. Get as far away from me as you can,” Spike ordered, opening the back of the Jeep.

Dawn started to object, but then remembered trying to get free from his iron grip, and subsided, moving to the front seat, as instructed.

Spike first grabbed the thermos of blood from Buffy’s bag, opened it and, forgoing the little cup, drank directly from the container. He downed about half of what was there, not spilling a single, precious drop. The quiet returned in his mind, pushing back the tortured screams that had begun building up again, and he took a deep, relieved breath.

“Won’t that make you stronger?” Buffy wondered, watching him put the thermos back in the bag.

Spike shook his head. “Won’t matter, the chains’ll still hold me. Calms me down, it does. Thought it was a good trade-off.”

Buffy pursed her lips but nodded as he grabbed the restraints from the bag and handed them to her. Then he climbed into the cargo area of the Jeep and laid on his side, facing the front, away from her. He bent his knees and folded his feet back toward his butt and placed his hands behind his back.

“Cuff me with the handcuffs, then string the manacles through the handcuffs and hook my ankles. Wrap the chain more than once to take out the slack, make sure I can’t kick,” he instructed the Slayer. “And make ‘em tight.”

“Is this really—” Buffy began.

“Should I have shagged the bird on the hood o’ your car?” Spike snarled. “Bloody hell, you were blazing mad a minute ago! Tie me up like I just snogged a girl in front of you! A very pretty girl, all shiny hair, and long legs that go t’ heaven, and sweet lips and—”

“Fine!” Buffy growled, setting her jaw, her mouth forming a tight line as she followed his instructions, clicking the cuffs and manacles tightly around his wrists and ankles before pocketing the key.

“Comfy?” she asked sarcastically when she was done.

“No,” he replied curtly.

“Good.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“What am I gonna do with you, Spike?” Buffy asked from the backseat of the Jeep. She was sitting sideways, her back against the door, her legs stretched out along the seat, looking back at Spike.

Spike looked up at her, then over at the driver’s seat, where Buffy was also sitting, driving back to Sunnydale.

“Bugger,” he muttered.

“I don’t think I have the proper equipment for that, but I could get Angel, if you’d rather?” the second Buffy suggested with a friendly smile.

“Think yer funny, doncha?” he snarled. “Need a better writer, pet.”

“You could be right,” she sighed, idly twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “But, that still leaves the question – what am I gonna do with you? You haven’t been following along with the program very well.”

“Oh, well, sorry t’ disappoint, luv,” Spike replied sarcastically. “Just what was I meant t’ be doing, then?”

“Spike, who are you talking to?” asked driver-Buffy, a frown wrinkling her features as she looked in the rearview mirror before remembering that she couldn’t see him in it.

“Just having a convo with your doppelganger, luv. Says I’m not playin’ nice,” Spike told her.

“She’s here? Now?!” driver-Buffy asked in alarm, turning her head to look around the Jeep, but seeing nothing but the three of them.

“See, that’s what I mean, Spike. You just keep blabbing to the Slayer. You should still be a blathering idiot right now, not feeding her information. I will have to have a talk with Lloyd about this. I mean, we had a deal and he apparently didn’t hold up his end of it. This really won’t do,” the second, backseat-Buffy informed him dourly.

“Yeah, she’s here. Apparently quite displeased with yours truly and Lloyd,” Spike replied to driver-Buffy.

“Should I stop the car?” driver-Buffy asked. “And who the hell is Lloyd?”

Spike tried to shrug but couldn’t really accomplish it, being hogtied. “Don’t think she can actually do anything but prattle on about how much of a disappointment I am.

“Lloyd’s the demon who dragged me through hell so I could get my soul back.”

“A demon named ‘Lloyd’?” driver-Buffy questioned. “What happened to the classics, like Balthazar and Andromalius?”

“Been done. Demons these days are tryin’ to make new names for themselves,” Spike answered driver-Buffy.

He then turned his attention back to backseat-Buffy. “If you want to start complaining about my failings, get in line,” he told her. “Reckon your namesake there has a laundry list of them just waiting to be aired.”

“I do not,” driver-Buffy complained. “I am list-less! Or, well ... maybe just a grocery list, a short one, like just for the butcher shop – mostly about kissing tall brunettes.”

Backseat-Buffy shook her head again. “Well, until I decide on a new path for you, we might as well have a little fun. Let’s see how good those restraints really are. I’ve heard good things about the Svartalves, they have quite a reputation of being master craftsmen with metal. Shall we test that?”

The apparition then began to sing softly, “ _Early one morning, just as the sun was rising…”_

Spike’s demon rose in an instant, snarling and growling and writhing madly, trying frantically to free himself from his bonds.

“Uhhh, Buffy, maybe you should pull over,” Dawn suggested nervously as Spike struggled wildly, turning this way and then that, pulling with his arms and trying to kick with his legs to break the Svartalves’ Slayer-strength chains.

Buffy put on her flashers and pulled to the side of the freeway, coming to a stop as quickly as she could in the emergency lane.

“Stay in the car! Lock the doors once I have him out,” Buffy ordered her sister, jumping out and running to the back of the Jeep.

Spike had turned over and was facing the back when Buffy opened it. He snarled and tried to lurch at her. His bindings were still holding, but his fangs gnashed wildly in an attempt to bite her. She began to drag him out by grabbing his legs near the knees, but then saw her duffle bag and the thermos inside, and a new idea came to her.

She reached over him, barely avoiding getting her arm ripped open with this fangs, and grabbed the thermos from the open bag. Tossing the plastic cup aside, she opened the bottle quickly and splashed the remaining blood in Spike’s face, trying to get it in the general vicinity of his mouth.

He quieted almost instantly, using his tongue to lick it off his lips and from around his mouth. Buffy stood at the back of the Jeep, breathless, watching, ready to pull him out of the car and onto the asphalt, away from Dawn, if he began thrashing again.

“Spike? Are you okay?” she asked tentatively, leaning in a little closer to the vampire.

His yellow eyes fastened on hers for an instant, and then morphed into blue, still trying to capture any blood in reach of his tongue.

“Spike, do you know who I am?” she asked again, laying a hand comfortingly on his shoulder.

“Buffy…” he murmured.

The Slayer gave him a small smile and nodded. “That’s right,” she assured him, reaching into the bag and retrieving an extra T-shirt she’d brought with her. She began gently wiping the remaining blood off his face with it, cooing assurances the whole while.

“Am I a sheep?” Spike asked her.

“No, why would you think that?”

“Trussed up for slaughter. Must be a sheep,” he asserted, pulling lightly on his bonds. “Buffy had a little lamb, its skin was white as snow, and everywhere that Buffy went, the lamb was sure to go,” Spike recited the children’s poem, with a couple of small alterations. 

“Follow the Slayer t’ slaughter, like a little lamb,” he muttered, closing his eyes as she wiped the blood from around them.

“No, Spike,” Buffy soothed gently.

“A pig then? This little piggy went t’ market, this little piggy stayed home,” Spike began another rhyme. “Takin’ me to market?”

“No, Spike, you’re not going to market. You’re not a sheep or a pig. You’re not tied up for slaughter,” Buffy assured him.

“That’s what they tell all the lambs before they slit their throats,” he asserted, before changing to, “Ring around the rosy. A pocketful of posies. Ashes, ashes. We all fall down.

“Am I ashes to you?” he asked, his brows knit together in concern.

“No, Spike, you aren’t ashes,” she promised him, finishing with wiping up the blood as best she could.

“Not a monster. Not a man. Not a sheep to slaughter. What am I, then? What am I to you?” he asked forlornly, his blue eyes delving into hers, intense and pleading.

Buffy tossed the blood-stained t-shirt into the backseat and looked down at him gravely, laying her warm palm against his cool cheek. “You’re my love, my hero, the one who knows my soul.”

Spike nodded solemnly and closed his eyes, leaning his cheek into her palm heavily. “You are my everything,” he whispered, his voice cracking with emotion.

Buffy leaned down and touched a soft kiss to his lips. “I love you, Spike,” she whispered in reply.

“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home. Your house is on fire. Your children will burn,” he recited tiredly. “It’s coming. From beneath you it devours.”

Buffy pulled back, looking at him with wide eyes, but he seemed to have fallen asleep just that quickly. She sighed heavily and gently slipped her hand away from beneath his cheek.

“You may be crazy, but you’re not wrong,” she murmured, closing the back of the Jeep on the exhausted vampire.

* * *

 

 

Notes: Song Referenced: [Early One Morning](https://youtu.be/cG3Bd51ACLM)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Buffy recruits Giles and the Scoobies to help her find out what’s wrong with Spike.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously amaze-balls -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making skillz are equally beyond belief! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	48. Oh, Dear Lord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy explains what’s going on to Giles and the Scoobies, and asks for their help ‘fixing’ Spike. Some facts start clicking into place for Buffy. There is news regarding Warren.

* * *

 

“I need to know how to fix this!” Buffy demanded of her gathered friends and family the next day back in her living room in Sunnydale. Spike was safely chained up down in the basement where he couldn’t hurt anyone if he suddenly went all ‘grr-argh’ again. She’d tried to get him to stay in her room, but he refused, insisting the basement would be safer.

“Why is he seeing and talking to people who aren’t there, and how are they controlling him? I need to know what this thing in his brain is. Is it related or something fun and new waiting to jump out at me like a Jack-in-the-box from hell?” she continued, waving the printout she’d gotten from Sam.

“Maybe someone put a functioning brain in Spike’s brain? That could only be an improvement,” Xander suggested.

Buffy glared at him. “I don’t know, Xan, why don’t we give it a try with you?” she snarled vehemently.

Willow stood up from her seat on the couch, laughing nervously, always the peacemaker. “Whoa, okay … let’s just take it one thing at a time,” she suggested. “Buffy, you said Spike got his soul, but … you said he already had one, so … which is it?”

“He did,” Buffy insisted, grinding the words like glass between her teeth. “He … he felt like he’d lost it, that it had died when I did, so he went and had some demon mojo it back to life. And now it’s too bright, it’s … too much.”

“So, he had a tiny soul and now he has a big one?” Anya asked. “I’m not sure it works that way.”

“Well, it does for Spike,” Buffy insisted. “Or maybe … I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t a soul? I mean, what is a ‘soul’, really? I’ve never actually seen mine, but everyone assumes it’s there, like everyone assumes Warren had one just cos he’s human-ish – which I’m not so sure of – on either count,” she argued.  “Spike had light inside, it was fighting the demon, there was … humanity, a conscience – there was more than just the demon. I thought it was, like, part of his soul. I don’t know,” she sighed, rubbing at her eyes tiredly.

“Well, I say size definitely matters,” Xander interjected, drawing raised brows from the ladies. “When it comes to souls,” Xander added quickly, clearing his throat and shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Wouldn’t a bigger soul be of the good?” he continued. “I mean, I say the bigger the soul the better when it comes to evil vampires. Maybe he won’t misplace it so easily that way.”

“Oh, you mean like if I die again and you decide to send him off to rip someone’s guts out for you?” Buffy replied, seething. “Do it yourself next time, Xander. See how _your_ soul likes it.”

Buffy felt a pang of guilt as the words spilled from her mouth. Isn’t that what she’d done? Used Spike to get information from Warren for her, so she wouldn’t have to dirty her hands? Yes, he’d volunteered to do it – it had been his idea, his plan – but that didn’t make her any less guilty of exactly what she was angry at Xander for. And she couldn’t say that Warren didn’t deserve what he got and more, either. Still, the way it all played out had her angry and lashing out at any target available, and Xander was a big, juicy bullseye.

Xander began to protest, but Giles stood up, taking over the peacemaker role from Willow. “Clearly, you feel what this demon has provided Spike is … inferior to what he had previously,” he stated, looking at Buffy.

“I don’t know … it’s just … hurting him.”

“I realize that, Buffy, but I’m relatively certain that is what souls do, particularly when inserted, full force, into William the Bloody,” the Watcher pointed out. “I’m sure you’ve heard the term ‘tortured soul’. I don’t believe you’ll find many ‘jolly, happy souls’ in poetry or literature.”

“Except Frosty the Snowman,” Dawn provided helpfully.

Giles looked at her in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

Dawn sang the old, familiar tune from one of her favorite Christmas specials, “ _’Frosty the Snowman was a jolly, happy soul. With a corn-cob pipe and a button nose, and two eyes made out of coal_.’”

“Indeed, well, be that as it may,” Giles conceded, looking back at Buffy. “I don’t believe vampires have the same catchy jingle.”

“Yeah, well, you aren’t the one who has to hold him and try to comfort him when he’s sobbing, are you?” Buffy retorted, frowning.

“Thank heavens for small favors, no,” Giles agreed. “But I’m not certain that there is any way to ‘fix it’, as you say.”

“B-Buffy, how did you know about Spike’s soul … or the light you say he had – b-before I mean?” Tara asked.

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking at her friends, letting her eyes settle on Giles. ‘ _You could never disappoint me_ ,’ he’d said. Well, she was about to test that theory.

“I … let him feed from me. When Riley shot him,” she began.

“Oh, dear lord,” Giles muttered, taking his glasses off and cleaning them vigorously. Her other friends were muttering too, but she pushed forward with her explanation.

“I needed him healed to fight the Suvolte with me!” she defended. “When he … when I … during that… connection, I somehow could see inside him. I could see his soul … well, what I think is part of his soul. I felt it, I … I felt the demon, too, but his soul was there, and I could touch it, heal it. It was a small flame, and I helped him build it up into a roaring fire.”

“That’s what got you high!” Dawn deduced, not overly concerned about the biting, just pleased with herself for putting that together.

Buffy shrugged. “Yeah, nothing works the same since I came back.”

“Do you know how dangerous that is, Buffy!?” Xander questioned, wide-eyed. “Do you not remember the Dark Mast— I mean, Dracula?!”

“Not as well as you do, I bet _, butt-monkey_ ,” Buffy scoffed at him. “I’m not under a thrall. It’s nothing like that. Can we please concentrate on fixing Spike’s soul and not on how I know about it?”

“N-no, wait a minute,” Tara objected. “You said you could t-touch it? How do you touch a soul?”

“It manifested as … well, it …” Buffy hesitated. She didn’t need Spike mocked for having a lark representing his soul, so she skipped that part and went directly to after it had Phoenixed itself into William. “It was him, only … more with the sweet and less with the Sichuan. It was William, before he was turned. He was in a cavern surrounded by darkness – the demon,” she clarified, if it was unclear. “And he had a fire going, it started off really small, but it got larger over time. It was growing, slowly. It was pushing the darkness back and it wasn’t hurting him like this one is.”

“’Over time’?” Anya asked. “As in, you’ve seen it more than once – you’ve been bitten more than once.”

“Oh, dear lord,” Giles moaned again, sitting back down heavily in his chair.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Yes, as in, _over time_.”

“So, it sounds like the demon that Spike made a deal with poured gas on the fire and now it’s burning him?” Willow suggested. “So, maybe you could go in and … I don’t know, douse it with Kool-Aid?”

Buffy sighed and took the one remaining empty seat in the living room. “Two things: I don’t know how to douse it, I’ve only ever built it up. And, even if I figured that out and he agreed to bite me right now, which I’m not sure he would, Dawn’s right – it messes me up.

“So far, it’s been all happy-drunk, but even happy I’ve been known to sort of destroy things. Spike’s the only one strong enough to stop me, and if I’ve been in there mucking around, I don’t know if he’ll be in any shape to do that. In fact, you could have two supernatural wacky-moles on your hands.”

“That’s ‘Whack-a-Mole’,” Xander corrected. “Only, in this case, I think we would be the moles and you would be the ‘whack’.”

“What if we could get you in without him biting you?” Willow suggested, looking at Tara. “I’m thinking the Goddess Hathor’s Sacred Joining spell in the name of healing and tranquility.”

Tara nodded thoughtfully. “W-With a blood oath, b-because of the vampire angle,” she added, still nodding. “That s-should work, Buffy.”

“If you could add a reveal element,” Giles suggested. “Buffy may also be able to determine the nature of that anomaly in his brain and perhaps who or what is controlling him.”

“Oh!” Willow exclaimed. “I know just the thing! Aparec—!”

Willow was interrupted by Tara clapping her hand over her lover’s mouth. “D-Don’t say that out loud,” she advised, giving Willow a loving, but warning look.

“Right … sorry,” Willow agreed when Tara removed her hand. “We’ve got it covered,” she assured the group.

“Any suggestions on how to counteract what the demon did to him once I’m in there?” Buffy asked the room at large.

Everyone shook their heads, no ideas forthcoming.

“Sorry, Buffy,” Willow said. “But I do have something else to share with the class,” she admitted. “It might be related to Spike’s seeing people who aren’t there.”

All eyes turned to her, interested.

“The other night, I … well, I might’ve seen Miss Calendar.”

“Might’ve?” Buffy prodded.

“Well, it wasn’t Miss Calendar, obviously, since: dead. But I was studying in the library and she just walked up out of the stacks and started talking to me. It was _her,_ but not her,” Willow continued. “I mean, she knew things that Miss Calendar knew, even things since she … died,” Willow said tactfully, casting an apologetic gaze at Giles for opening old wounds. “But she said things that I knew she never would.”

“Like what?” Buffy asked.

Willow huffed out a hesitant sigh, but Tara laid a supportive hand on the red witch’s shoulder and Willow continued. “She told me that I should never do magic again, _ever_. That I’ll end up killing … everyone,” Willow admitted, looking down.

“When I said I wasn’t sure I could do that, she suggested…” Willow cleared her throat and looked up at Buffy. “She said I should kill myself to keep that from happening, that is was the only way to keep you all safe.”

“What?!” Buffy exclaimed, alarmed. “That’s ridiculous, Will! You aren’t even considering that, are you?”

“No! No, not at all!” Willow assured her hurriedly. “That’s when I realized it wasn’t her ghost, it was something else pretending to be her. I called her on it, and she said that this last year was gonna seem like a cakewalk after what she, or it, will put us through, and that it’s not a fan of easy death. Then it turned inside out and just, ‘ _POOF_!’ disappeared.”

“Oh, that sounds about right,” Buffy groaned, dropping her head into her hands. “Why do big-bads always have to tell us all the ways they’re gonna torture us instead of just getting on with the torturing part of the program?”

“Uhh, I, for one, am all for the telling and less about the actual torturing,” Xander interjected.

“Unless someone else is doing the torturing for you, apparently,” Buffy muttered under her breath, her head still bowed, resting in her palm.

“It’s because they feed on fear,” Anya explained matter-of-factly, making Buffy look back up. “It makes them all tingly and deliriously happy. It’s like one long, rapturous orgasm that makes the world fall away and drowns you in a dark chocolate river of complete and utter ecstasy soaked in marshmallow fluff,” she explained dreamily.

Everyone looked at her, brows raised.

“Or … so I’ve heard,” Anya added with a shrug.

Buffy cleared her throat. “Okay, anyone else have any unworldly visitors?”

Dawn raised her hand tentatively.

“Dawnie?” Buffy asked in alarm.

“I saw Mom,” the girl explained hesitantly.  

“Mom?” Buffy breathed softly, her heart constricting.

Dawn nodded, looking down. “She told me …” Dawn stopped, steeling her nerve before continuing. “She said that something big is here, and when things were really bad, that … you wouldn’t choose me, that you wouldn’t be with me, that you’d turn against me,” the girl revealed, looking back up at her sister, tears shimmering in her eyes.

Buffy shook her head and moved swiftly to Dawn, kneeling in front of her and taking both of the younger girl’s hands in hers. “Dawn, I love you more than life. Nothing would make me turn against you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Spike did,” Dawn whispered, barely audible, her eyes cast down into her lap.

“That was not Spike,” Buffy assured her. “Spike would never turn against you or hurt you. Ever! That was not Mom. It was a demon trying to turn us against each other, don’t you see? We can’t let that happen!”

Dawn nodded slowly, a tear trickling down her cheek, still not looking at Buffy. “It looked and sounded just like Mom, only … glow-ier,” she whispered.

“I know, honey, but it wasn’t. I promise you,” Buffy asserted, squeezing the younger girl’s hands tightly. “Do you believe me?”

Dawn raised her gaze up to meet Buffy’s and nodded again, sniffing back her tears.

Buffy stood up and addressed the room at large, facts clicking together in her head. “This is all sounding very déjà vu-y,” she told the group. “Do you guys remember that Christmas when it snowed? When I was getting sucked into Angel’s dreams?”

Giles, Xander, Willow, and Dawn nodded.

“I don’t!” Anya piped up, raising her hand. “What kind of dreams were they? Orgasm dreams? Was there bondage involved?”

Xander grabbed her hand and put it down. “I’ll tell you about it later,” he promised.

“Wait a minute!” Anya continued, ignoring her husband, looking back at Buffy. “Can Angel lose his soul from a wet dream about you? Does pumping out nocturnal emissions all over his boxers make him ‘perfectly happy’?”

Giles removed his glasses again and rubbed his eyes. “Oh, dear lord.”

“H-he … doesn’t wear boxers,” Buffy informed her. “So, I’m gonna go with ‘no’ on that. But thank you for that visual.”

“What does ‘nocturnal emissions’ mean? Like … farts?” Dawn asked.

Everyone turned incredulous looks on her, but no one spoke.

“Oh, _that_ kind of… never mind,” she said after a beat, her face flushing red.

“Can we get back to the point? The man from snowy Sunnydale? You guys remember it?” Buffy redirected the conversation.

“Yes, unfortunately, I recall it all too well,” Giles admitted. “Angel came to me for help. After killing Jenny and torturing me, like we were old school chums or some such nonsense, he thought I would help him. It was all quite ludicrous, as I recall,” the ex-Watcher provided, finally looking up at her. “What does that have to do with this?”

“He was being haunted. The ghosts were trying to get him to kill me. One of the people … or ghosts haunting him was Miss Calendar. She talked to me, too – I saw her. She said she was The First Evil. But it wasn’t her, it was just the form it was taking. I saw its true form before it vanished. It was big and grr-argh scary.”

She turned to Giles. “Do you think it’s the same thing haunting Spike? Cos he’s not seeing dead people, he’s seeing Angel and me…” her voice trailed off, realization coming to her. “… and Angel is technically dead, and I _was_ dead.”

“S-So, it can be anyone who is dead or was dead at one t-time?” Tara asked.

Buffy sighed. “That seems to be the pattern so far. Giles? Does that sound right? Is that what’s coming? The First Evil?”

Giles replaced his glasses and shook his head. “At that time, when Angel was haunted, we could find very little about The First Evil, as I recall. It is ancient, predates man and demons, and very powerful. It’s not a physical being, it’s not something you can fight, Buffy.”

“No, but it had those crazy, eyeless monk guys. They bled well enough,” she recalled.

“Indeed, well … perhaps,” Giles agreed. “But if it is The First that is coming, I’m not certain that fighting its minions will be sufficient.”

“Then find out how I fight it directly,” Buffy suggested helpfully.

 Giles shook his head, but said, “I’ll see what further information I can acquire.”

Buffy nodded, then addressed the group again. “Clearly, this demon, whether it is The First, or something else, has a fear of our allegiance, fear of Willow’s magic, fear of me and Dawn, and our bond. It’s trying to drive us apart. We can’t let that happen!” she insisted.

“If anyone else gets any dead visitors, we all need to know. There are clues here based on who it’s targeting and what it’s saying that we need to follow,” Buffy surmised, drawing nods from the group. “It tried to get Angel to kill me, and when that failed, it tried to get him to kill himself. I don’t know if it’ll do the same to Spike if he keeps missing the mark. It’s manipulative and seems to know our weaknesses and how to exploit them.”

Turning to Willow and Tara, she asked, “Can you work on that spell for Spike, and let me know when it’s ready to go? I want to do that sooner rather than later, see if I can confirm or deny evil déjà vu mojo.”

The two witches nodded and the group slowly disbursed, leaving Giles and Buffy alone.

“One other thing, Giles,” she began. “I’ve had dreams of girls being attacked, killed. I think they must be … Slayers-in-waiting? ‘From beneath you it devours,’ is what the last one said in the dream. Spike said that to me, too.  Do you know anything about the girls, or what that means? Or can you check on it with the Council?”

Giles’ brows raised. “I have no knowledge of Potentials being targeted or what that may mean,” he began. “But I will check into it immediately.”

Buffy nodded. “This is going to be bad,” she told him. “I can feel it getting closer.”

Giles’ expression turned even more grave. “Indeed.”

Before they could discuss more, Willow returned to the room and flipped on the TV, changing the channel to the news. “You need to see this, Buffy,” she told them, turning the volume up.

“We’ve received more details about the inmate who was discovered dead in the infirmary at Hilltop State Prison last week,” the television anchorman reported as a mugshot of a dark-haired man was displayed on the screen.  “He has been identified as Warren Mears. The Sunnydale native attended one semester at Sunnydale High before attending the prestigious Technical and Engineering Institute in Dutton. Mr. Mears was awaiting trial on attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and grand theft among other, lesser, charges. Investigators have not released further details regarding cause of death, but have confirmed that foul play is suspected …”

Buffy seemed to turn to stone, all expression draining from her features as she crossed her arms over her chest protectively. “Can’t say I’m broken up about that,” she droned flatly, staring with unseeing eyes at the TV screen.

Willow shook her head. “I thought maybe relieved? I mean, what if he got off on a technicality, o-or got parole later … or just escaped? At least now you don’t have to ever worry about him again.”

Buffy nodded stoically. “About time we had some good news for a change,” she agreed, her voice dripping with icy vengeance.

“Buffy, surely you don’t mean that,” Giles rebuked. “I understand how you feel, but…”

“Have you ever been shot to death, Giles?” Buffy asked sharply, turning her steely gaze on him.

Giles removed his glasses and began to clean them as he spoke. “Well, errr, no, not that I recall.”

“Then don’t tell me you understand how I feel. You’re gonna tell me that guy is a human and I should have some kind of compassion for him. Well, I call ‘bullshit’. He was a monster! In fact, he was more of a monster than some of the monsters I’ve slain. No way I’m feeling bad about him being eradicated from the face of the Earth.”

Giles replaced his glasses, looking abashed. “I see. Yes, well, then … I’m certain you are correct.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and grabbed the paper and pen that sat next to the phone. “Could you just write that out for me, and sign and date it?”

Giles gave his Slayer a feeble smile. “I seem to have forgotten what it was I said,” he said in mock sincerity. “I’m sure you know that happens frequently in the aged and infirm.”

* * *

 

Note: Song Referenced: [Frosty The Snowman](https://youtu.be/k6zW225k_O0)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: In an unusual turn of events, Buffy and Giles separately give Spike advice on love, each in quite different ways. Buffy fulfills her destiny as her sister’s guardian by ruining Dawn’s life.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously and utterly priceless -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond the pale! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	49. Mission Accomplished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Giles both have talks with Spike about love. Buffy succeeds in ruining Dawn’s life.

 

Buffy descended the stairs into the basement, a warm mug of pig’s blood in hand. Spike was sitting on a cot on the far wall, both hands manacled with a long chain to a large, sturdy eyebolt that Xander had installed in the wall just a couple of hours ago. They weren’t the Slayer-proof chains, but some that Buffy had from a previous need to restrain her other, now ex, vampire boyfriend some years before. They were longer, giving Spike at least a short at being comfortable. She felt sure they would hold him if the need arose. He was still wearing the army fatigues that Sam had provided. Buffy hadn’t gone to his crypt to retrieve any of own clothes yet.

She handed him the mug and pulled a chair up to sit facing him.

“Heard all that,” he told her, taking a sip of the blood. He wrinkled his nose at it. After Slayer and Key blood, it tasted like rancid … well, pig.

“Figured,” she sighed.

“Thanks fer the … _discretion_ about my … soul or whatever it was – the lark and all that rot.”

Buffy gave him an understanding smile. “Well, it really isn’t anyone’s business but yours, is it? Not even mine.”

“It’s yours,” he disagreed, looking up from the mug to meet her eyes. “It belongs to you, Buffy. I got it for you.”

Buffy shook her head. “You already had it before you met me, Spike. It was there. Anya says it’s not a soul, but … well, whatever it is or was, I think it came back with you from heaven when you rose.”

“Even that was yours, Buffy, before it died. This new one, it’s yours, too.”

Buffy sighed. “I don’t know that much about souls, but I don’t think they’re interchangeable. Whatever the demon did, he didn’t give you a new one. I think he just … resurrected or healed the old one.”

Spike shrugged, taking another sip of the blood. “Still yours, pet – new, used, dead or alive. My soul belongs to you, along with my heart, and my hot, tight little body.”

Buffy smiled at him, a genuine, heartfelt smile that reached her eyes. Seeing her smile made the pain in Spike’s soul lessen just enough to be bearable.

“Love t’ see you smile, Buffy,” he whispered, his throat tight with emotion. “Know ya haven’t had much reason to of late. Know that’s my doing.”

Buffy looked down at her hands, blinking back her tears. “Warren may have killed me, but you hurt me,” she said simply.

Spike’s eyes shimmered, and he looked down into the mug between his hands, ashamed. “I’m sorry. I never meant to.”

“It hurt that you didn’t trust me to help you. That you didn’t … love me enough—”

“I love you with my entire being, Buffy. I love you more than there are stars in the sky,” Spike swore fervently, cutting her off as he looked back up at her. “That’s why I had to go.”

Buffy shook her head and looked up at him then. “That doesn’t make it hurt any less. You didn’t trust me to understand, to forgive you. Am I that much of a monster, Spike, that you thought I wouldn’t?”

Spike shook his head, tears leaking down his cheeks. “Not a monster … an angel.”

Buffy snorted sarcastically. “I’m no angel, Spike. You should know that better than anyone. You’ve seen my darkness, up close and personal. You’ve been on the receiving end of it too many times.

“My hands aren’t clean, neither is my soul,” Buffy admitted. “I’ve made lots of mistakes, done a lot of questionable things, some really … really bad things. I’ve gotten my friends hurt, even gotten some killed … I’ve …” she hesitated, blinking back a sudden wash of guilt that welled in her eyes and constricted her throat. “I’ve got blood on my hands, too, Spike. I’ll always have those sins to live with, but I can live with them because the people I love, who love me, forgave me. They understood why I did things, even if they didn’t agree, they could understand, and they still loved me – warts and all.

“That’s all I wanted from you, Spike. To trust me enough to understand, to forgive you, to help you. I just wanted a chance … a chance to … to love you.”

Spike shook his head despondently, dropping his gaze again. “I’m sorry, Buffy. I didn’t see how you could … how you could ever forgive me.”

Buffy reached out and laid a warm hand on his forearm, making him look up to meet her eyes. “And that’s what hurts.”

He nodded, forcing himself to hold her gaze. “I’m sorry, more than you know.”

“I know you are, Spike. I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry that what I’ve done, how I’ve acted, made you feel like you couldn’t trust me with your pain.

“I know I’m not the world’s most sharing person,” she admitted. “I’m used to figuring out the right course of action, making decisions on my own and doing it, and damn what anyone else thinks. That’s what a Slayer is. The Chosen ONE … not the Chosen committee or family or BFFs. But neither of us can be that way if this is gonna work.

“We aren’t alone anymore. We can’t keep acting like we are or … we’ll just keep hurting each other,” she advised sadly.

Spike looked down, abashed. “Now who’s givin’ advice on love?”

Buffy chuckled a small, sad laugh and rubbed her eyes, trying to make them stop leaking. “When you left, I missed you so much, every second of every minute. It was like I lost an arm … or worse, a … a _torso_. I don’t want to hurt like that again, Spike. I can’t take it. My heart can’t take it again.”

Spike nodded miserably. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Buffy. Did I hurt ya too much? Do you want me t’ go? Are you sayin’ … you’re done with me? Don’t blame ya, of course—”

Buffy jumped up from her chair with a screech of frustration, her hands balled into fists. “NO, DAMN IT!” she screamed at him as she began pacing back and forth in front of the cot. “That’s not it at all!

“I’m saying, don’t hurt me like that again! I’m saying, talk to me before you go off and do something stupid! I’m saying … you know my goddamned phone number! CALL ME, instead of fucking SAM, when you’re in trouble! I’m your goddamned girlfriend! NOT HER!

“What the fuck is it with you two? I’ve tried to be understanding-girl, tried to not be the jealous bitch who doesn’t trust her boyfriend, but what the actual fuck, Spike?! What does she have that I don’t? Why didn’t you call ME?! Am I that horrible? What’s wrong with ME?!” she demanded, trying to sound angry but a tinge of wounded anguish leaked out in her voice.

“Not one fucking time in four goddamned months! But there you are all cozied up with someone else’s wife! Is that it? You’re trying to fuck her to get back at Finn?”

Spike had plastered his back against the wall when she jumped up, watching her warily as she paced back and forth in front of him, afraid to interrupt, but, when she took a breath he interjected, “I don’t know your phone number, pet.”

Buffy stopped abruptly and whirled around to face him. “ _What_?”

“I … I never rang you up, just came over. Know the house number, the street, the town o’ course … don’t know your phone number.”

“You called me that time …”

“At the Magic Box, and from a phone booth – got the number out of the book – don’t remember it.”

Buffy just stared at him, dumbfounded.

“I’m sorry, luv,” he apologized again. “Reckon I should’ve figured out a way … there just weren’t any phone directories for the states in Namibia. And … didn’t know if ya would even talk to me. Was easier to send letters, then I didn’t have to know if you didn’t read them.  

“Not trying to fuck her, don’t want her … not trying to hurt you. Just thought … if something happened to the new soul like happened to the old one, if I had a chip then I’d still be able t’ keep my promise to protect Dawn. If ya knew for certain I couldn’t hurt anyone, then I thought you’d be able to sleep at night. You could trust me around the nibblet. That’s all it was. Wasn’t anything more.”

Buffy stalked away abruptly, going over to an old chest of drawers that held all kinds of miscellany, and started rummaging through them, finding what she was looking for quickly. She came back and grabbed Spike’s manacled left hand, pulling it toward her, palm up.

“805-555-8625,” she recited as she wrote it with a permanent marker on his palm.

She looked up at him then, curling his fingers closed over it. “Memorize it,” she ordered, before turning and heading for the stairs.

“Does this mean yer still my girl?” he called after her, looking at the number on his palm.

“It means, if you ever kiss Sam like that again, I’ll rip your balls off and stuff them down your fucking throat,” she called back, as she started up the stairs.

Spike smiled, a warmth wrapping around his aching heart, easing his pain and guilt. He closed his hand over the number protectively, then let out a deep sigh. She was still his girl.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Buffy, I really need to talk to you.” Dawn accosted her in the kitchen when she came out of the basement. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

Buffy sighed, she really didn’t need more matters of life and death than she already had on her plate. “What is?”

“Have you seen the uniform they want me to wear to this stupid school you enrolled me in?” Dawn demanded, holding up a conservative khaki blouse and skirt, with a dark blue blazer over top, to show her sister.

The blouse was a collared, button-up with short sleeves. There wasn’t much shape to it, but not terrible. The skirt was a pencil cut that would fall below Dawn’s knee – a little out of fashion for the times – okay, probably about fifty years out of fashion. The blazer was dark blue and had the school’s emblem on the right breast: a yellow eagle – typical for a private school. There was a tie, too, that Buffy could see wrapped around the hanger, patterned in a loud, blue and yellow plaid.

Overall, Buffy would describe the look as, ‘Private School Frump.’

Buffy pursed her lips, placing her hand over her mouth to hide her own revulsion with it. “What’s wrong with that? It’s very … professional looking.”

“What profession? Crazy-cat woman?” Dawn wondered, waving it in Buffy’s face. “It’s horrible! I can’t wear this!

“Why can’t I go with my friends to the new Sunnydale High?! Why do I have to go to this stupid school where I don’t know anyone and have to dress like a Library Sciences reject?”

“Well, maybe because they built the new one on the ruins of the old one, which is directly on top of the Hellmouth,” Buffy suggested reasonably.

“It was okay for you to go there!” Dawn argued.

“Yeah, I’m the Slayer. Kinda goes with the territory. You aren’t going to school on the Hellmouth, I don’t want you within a hundred miles of the place, Dawnie, so deal,” Buffy insisted.

“Well, too late for that! We live, like, four miles away!” Dawn pointed out huffily.

“Then I don’t want you within 3.9 miles of the place,” Buffy amended, giving Dawn a smug smile and crossing her arms over her chest.

Dawn stomped her foot in frustration, reminding Buffy of a small child who had been told she couldn’t have a cookie.

“You’ll make new friends, you’ll get a good education, and, most of all, you won’t be cursed, possessed, or killed by a demon,” Buffy pointed out. “Discussion closed.”

“Arrrggghhh! I hate you! You’re ruining my life!” Dawn screamed, whirling away from Buffy and darting for the living room and then stomping up the stairs to her room.

“Three, two, one …” Buffy muttered to herself before giving a satisfied nod when she heard Dawn’s door slam right on time. “Houston, we have blastoff.”

Giles stepped into the kitchen from the backyard, looking after the fuming girl. “You must be doing something right,” he assured Buffy. “Ruining her life is, after all, your primary mission as guardian.”

Buffy snorted a laugh and looked up at him. “Well, mission accomplished. I’m glad I at least have that part of my life handled.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike looked up when he heard the basement door open above, hoping Buffy was coming back to spend more time with him. He’d missed her so terribly the last months, and it seemed to be even be worse now that he’d seen her again, touched her, held her, felt her lips against his.

Every moment apart seemed like an eternity to his tortured soul. He wanted nothing more than to be free of these chains, to be at her side this minute, but he knew the risk was too great.  No matter how much it hurt him, he couldn’t risk hurting anyone else, especially her or Dawn.

Spike sighed when he realized who it was stalking slowly down the steps, and leaned his head back against the wall, letting his eyes fall closed.

“Rupert,” he greeted the visitor impassively, his eyes still closed, not looking at the ex-Watcher.

“Spike,” Giles replied just as unemotionally, walking slowly over to the chained vampire.

“Planning on usin’ that pointy stick on me, are you?” Spike wondered, opening his eyes and looking up at the older man.

Giles gave him a fatherly smile, but his eyes remained steely. He turned the chair around that Buffy had been sitting in and straddled it, lowering himself down to be at eye-level with the vampire.

“I understand you’re not fettered by that chip any longer,” Giles remarked, not answering the question. “That makes you a threat.”

“One thing I always liked about you, Watcher: firm grasp on the obvious,” Spike taunted, holding up his chained wrists.

“Buffy tells me you’re under someone else’s control, as well,” Giles continued, ignoring the jibe. “That you’ve attacked her twice, thus far.”

Spike just pursed his lips, sucking his cheeks in, making his cheekbones stand out like razorblades as he maintained eye contact with the man, but didn’t answer.

“She also tells me that she loves you, and believes you love her. I’m certain I don’t need to tell you that I find that notion repulsive in the extreme. You are not worthy of her on any possible level. But I know from past experience that my opinion on the subject will not sway her.”

“Ya got a point, other than that wooden one?” Spike wondered, eyeing the stake that the ex-Watcher was rolling casually between his fingers.

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Giles replied. “I may not be Buffy’s Watcher any longer, but I assure you that if you hurt her in any way—”

“You’ll hunt me down and turn me into the dustiest pile o’ dust that ever dusted the dusty cemeteries of Sunnydale,” Spike filled in, raising his brows. “Sing me a new one, that one’s gettin’ old.”

Giles shook his head slowly. “No, Spike. I’ll hunt you down and make you _beg_ to be a pile of dust. You have no idea what I’m capable of,” he informed the vampire in a deadly tone. “If you think Angelus is ruthless, then perhaps I should remind you that I survived him.”

Spike nodded slowly, not flinching, holding the Watcher’s gaze for a long moment. The vampire leaned forward until he was close enough that he could’ve strangled the man, even with his wrists fettered.  “If I hurt Buffy, then I’ll let you,” Spike assured him grimly.

Giles held the vampire’s eyes, unblinking, for several heartbeats. He finally gave a short nod of his head.

“I believe we understand each other, then,” Giles stated before standing up and turning to go.

“I do love her, ya know,” Spike called after him.

Giles paused a moment, not looking back, but nodded. “The question is, will that be enough?” he remarked, before disappearing up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Back to action! Buffy goes into Spike’s psyche to try and sort out what’s going on with his soul and The First’s hold on him. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulously and utterly priceless -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond the pale! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	50. Metaphors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy ventures into Spike’s soul/mind/psyche trying to find out what’s controlling him and if she can do anything about the pain from his new soul. 
> 
> Note: I don’t think they used salt much, if at all, in the magic on Buffy, but almost every other story with magic uses salt for various things (particularly keeping spirits/ghosts/wraiths out by forming circles or barriers with it), therefore, we are using salt.

* * *

 

Spike and Buffy sat facing each other, cross-legged on the floor of the basement. They were inside a chalk pentagram drawn on the floor, red candles burning at each of the five points, with the whole thing surrounded by a circle of salt.

“This better work,” Spike remarked, looking around. “Lots o’ margaritas apparently gave their lives fer this.”

Willow chuckled lightly. “It was in a good cause,” she assured him. “We don’t want anything else, like more evil spirits, slipping in with Buffy. I think there’s enough evil dead skulking around inside you as it is.”

“Not sure if I should be flattered or insulted by that,” Spike replied sourly, letting her cut a long line across his right palm with a sharp knife.

Willow gave him a nervous laugh. “I just meant—”

“I know what you meant, Red,” Spike assured her as she joined his bleeding right hand with Buffy’s, which had a similar slash across the palm.  The witch wrapped their clasped hands with a red ribbon, symbolically joining them, as their blood comingled and dripped slowly into an antique silver bowl with delicate filigree around the edges that sat on the floor between them.

“Okay, are you guys ready to hook up?” the witch asked the two warriors, looking down at them.

Both blondes looked up at her, brows raised.

“I mean, in the metaphysical sense not in the, you know, _hooking up_ sense. I promise there will be no hooking up in the spell, just … joining and connecting and coupling and … ummm … this isn’t getting any better,” Willow stammered.

Buffy rolled her eyes and looked back at Spike. “You might want to stop talking and just do it, Will.”

“Oh, right! Good idea,” the witch agreed.

Willow looked over to Tara, who was standing outside the salt circle. Tara gave her girlfriend a supportive smile and nodded reassuringly. They’d talked it over and decided that Tara just didn’t have enough power to do this, it would have to be Willow. Willow hadn’t actually done any magic of her own for some time. She’d quit cold turkey after realizing she was addicted to it when she’d hurt Dawn while high on magic. But there was no real choice now. She had to step up.

“Just look into each other’s eyes,” Willow instructed, before she took a deep breath and cleared her mind. She reached down and held Spike and Buffy’s linked hands between hers and began the spell.

“Goddess Hathor, we call on you in the name of healing and tranquility. Join these two warriors in spirit, soul, and blood. As their blood flows and joins, allow their souls to join. Allow peace to be restored and darkness defeated. Open all doors, remove all barriers, clear all paths.  Aparecium! Lungis! Coeo! Coalesco!”

As Willow spoke, the flames of the candles on the points of the pentagram flared three feet in the air and a magical wind whipped around her and the two blondes, building with each word into a whirling tornado within the magical confines of the spell.

Buffy felt Spike’s grip on her hand tighten, becoming almost painful as Willow cast the spell, but she didn’t look away from his eyes. They seemed suddenly more vivid, filling her vision, allowing her to see every nuance of color and pattern in them. As she watched, every brilliant and subtle shade of blue, every glint of grey, every tinge of green and fleck of gold within them seemed to come alive, bright and shimmering, calling to her. She felt the wind whipping around her, swirling her hair around her face, but all she could see were his eyes.

Those eyes that she had fallen into more than once during moments of rapture. Those eyes that drowned her in adoration. Those eyes that showered her with love. Those eyes that touched her soul and allowed her to see into his.

And then she was engulfed in them. Bright bursts of exquisite shades of blue glittered in her vision as she swirled and fell through a warm pool of light. She floated in the love that they shared, felt it surrounding her, caressing her, consuming her. She let go then, giving in to it, giving over to the embrace of endless devotion, of infinite passion, of immeasurable love.

And then she fell through it and the feeling of peace and love was gone. Just like when she’d been yanked out of heaven, she instinctively reached back for it, trying to recapture that moment, that feeling, but it was beyond her reach. She fell through complete and utter darkness, and then landed in a blinding light, hitting hard in the depths of Spike’s soul.

Buffy moaned and curled into a ball as all the breath was driven painfully from her lungs when she hit. She clamped her eyes closed against the blinding light that shone down on her as she tried to take in enough oxygen to re-inflate her tortured lungs and get the pain to subside.

Finally, she managed to roll up into a sitting position and squint her eyes open, shading them with her hand as she looked around. She had landed atop a hill of bleached, white bones. Below her, parched, scorched plains, scattered with even more bones, stretched out in all directions like a never-ending desert. The only living things in sight were large saguaro cacti, like those in the Arizona desert, which dotted the landscape like giant, thorny demons, waiting to snag her. 

“Oh, come on,” she whined, still squinting against the blinding light from above. “I know he killed a lot of people as a vampire, but this seems like a bit of an exaggeration,” she contended as she got to her feet, trying to balance on the shifting mountain of bones beneath her.

She sighed, turning in a slow circle atop her mountain vista, trying to figure out which way to go. It all looked the same for as far as the eye could see – desolation, destruction, bleached bones and parched sand. The horizon, where the sky met the ground, was black as night, as was the sky above, except for the blinding sun that blazed down. She’d never seen this landscape before; she’d always been inside some type of canyon before – that was where she’d always seen William or the little lark.

Unable to find any landmarks, she had decided to just start walking, heedless of the direction, when she heard something behind her, like the beating of wings.  She turned to find the little sparrow – or lark – fluttering around in the air, flying away a short distance and back again, urging her to follow.

She gave it a small smile of acknowledgement and nodded. “I know, Timmy’s down the well. I’m coming.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

After mostly tumbling down off the mountain of bones, Buffy had followed her fluttering guide over more smaller hills made of the same, through parched valleys, and across dried and cracked riverbeds. Now and then they would have to cross deep gorges in the earth, partially filled with something that looked like a river of black, solid rock. It looked as if the rock had been liquid at one time, like lava, then simply hardened in place.

The sun above them never changed, it never moved, it never diminished, no clouds blotted it out for even a moment. It just beat down on them, relentless and blinding.  She’d have to stop at times simply to close her eyes and try to get the stabbing headache that had developed behind them to lessen just a bit. But the little bird wouldn’t allow her to rest for long, urging her ever forward. She felt like she must’ve walked for hours, covered many miles of this bone wasteland, before the landscape changed. Unfortunately, the change was not for the better.

Buffy stood on the edge of a swamp with the little bird perched on her shoulder and sighed heavily.

“Seriously?” she muttered, looking at the oozing blood that bubbled up from the ground. “We can’t go around this?” she asked her guide, but he just fluffed his feathers and settled back on her shoulder.

“Spike is so gonna owe me for this,” she muttered, taking a tentative step into the gore.

It was only when her foot sank down several inches into the muck that she realized that the blood wasn’t oozing up from the ground so much as through entrails and viscera. An eyeball popped up to the top next to her leg, its brown iris staring at her accusingly, and some grey matter squished up from the bloody muck a few inches away.

“Oh, you cannot be serious,” she groaned, trying to pull her foot back out of the sucking gore with limited success.

She finally wrenched her foot out of it, managing, somehow, to keep her boot on her foot, and backed up away from it.

“I can’t do that,” she told the little bird. “I just can’t.”

The little bird tweeted excitedly and flew in a circle around her head, then out over the viscera marsh, and back again.

“I can’t go that way!” she told it again, and again it flew around her head, then away, fluttering over the gore a moment before coming back. “There has to be a different way!”

Buffy sighed and felt tears sting her eyes. “I can’t…” she moaned despondently, feeling utterly helpless. It was just too much. Walking through a swamp of blood and guts and brains and floating eyeballs and who knew what else ... she just couldn’t do it!

The little bird landed on her shoulder and grabbed onto her shirt with its little feet. Holding onto her tightly, it fluttered its wings and lifted her off the ground a few inches before dropping her.

It twittered at her madly, again circling around her and flying away before coming back.

Buffy furrowed her brow, trying to figure out how that little bird had lifted her and what it was trying to tell her. The bird landed on her again, lifting her up with its small wings pounding, before dropping her back to the ground once more.

“Okay, you shouldn’t be able to do that,” Buffy began, thinking out loud. “Which means … something. What does it mean? It means we aren’t in Kansas anymore,” she muttered, looking around as she thought. “It means the same rules don’t apply.”

“Everything’s a metaphor. There are too many bones, too much blood, too much sun. So … what am I a metaphor of?”

The little bird tweeted wildly again, then flew straight up toward the burning sun before tucking its wings and falling back to the ground, landing on its back with a small thump and a puff of dust in front of Buffy. The sparrow staggered back to its feet, as if drunk, then spread its wings again, fluttering back up into the air in front of her face.

“A dead bird?” Buffy guessed, making the sparrow roll its eyes – honest to God!

Buffy sighed.

“Blue ice? Wile E. Coyote? Lois Lane if Superman didn’t catch her? A falling star?” she continued to guess.

At her last guess, the little sparrow landed on a pile of bones nearby and began dancing around wildly, raising its wings up and turning in circles in front of her, making her pause a moment and think. 

“A falling star?” she said again, making the bird stop and begin turning the other way, less excitedly. “Not a falling star … a falling … falling … angel?” she tried, and the sparrow flew up and circled her, tweeting madly.

“A fallen angel. Which means, I have … wings?” she continued, looking back over her shoulder.

In that instant, a pair of large, glimmering, white wings sprouted into life behind her, unfurling and stretching out several feet in both directions.

“Holy shit,” she muttered, then turned to the sparrow and demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me that before I walked a hundred miles in that desert!?”

The sparrow rolled its eyes again, basically saying, ‘ _You didn’t ask, stupid!’_ and took off over the blood swamp.

“Wait a minute! How do I get these to woooorrrrkkkk?” she asked, the last word coming out as a surprised exclamation as her wings flapped and lifted her off the ground.

“Oh shiiittt …” she cried as she began flying shakily over the gore swamp, her arms and legs flailing, following the little bird. She careened this way and that, losing altitude then gaining, falling at times before catching herself with her new appendages. It took a few minutes of trial and error, of almost crashing into the ooze twice, before she got the hang of it, though she wasn’t sure what to do with her arms. She finally held them out in front of her like Superman and tried to use them to steer. It seemed to work.

From her new vantage point high above it all, she could see the entire landscape. It was like an archery target with an outer border that was as dark as onyx, then came a ring made of the white bone desert, an inner ring of the red blood swamp, and a slate-blue bullseye in the center rising above it all. Running out from the center, crossing all of the rings, were those deep gouges with the black stone rivers. There were many of them, radiating out in all directions.

As she flew high above it all, Spike’s words came back to her, “ _Felt like an emptiness taking over, it did.  An evil that spreads out like jagged furrows o’ black lava from yer soul. Eats away at ya, it does_.”

The jagged furrows of black lava … that’s what those were. There were so many of them … and they were so deep. To cross them she’d had to slide down one side on her butt, then climb with all her strength to get back up the other side, often sliding back down more than once before she made it to the top. His soul must’ve been in so much pain as those were carved out, burning with bloodlust, filled with the agonizing darkness of the demon.

And now it had all been solidified, flash-frozen, under the brilliant glow of his renewed soul. She wondered how painful that had been, to suddenly have all that black, liquid fire doused with light and turned to stone in an instant. She thought it would be something like crashing a car into a solid wall of rock at high speed: shattering.

How did Spike endure it? How did Spike endure any of this? It’s a wonder he had any of his marbles left rolling around in his brain at all.

Buffy sighed and turned her attention to the center of the bullseye. It looked like a volcano that had exploded and left only the shell of the rocky, shale mountain behind. The center of the mountain was hollow, empty, the top open to the sky. That was where she’d been before, in what she thought had been a canyon. It was where the fire had been, where she’d first met the sparrow and William. She was sure of it. Everything else that she could now see – the swamp, the desert, the furrows of lava – had been dark, swallowed in the inky blackness of the demon.

She circled over the hollowed-out mountain a few times, trying to figure out how to land. As she did, it occurred to her that this was where William’s soul, his humanity had been in life. It had, undoubtedly, filled that mountain when he was a human, and most of it had been ripped out when he’d been turned. Only a portion of it had come back with him, or stayed with him, but it was enough to keep a spark of light in there, to keep the demon from completely taking over. It was enough to keep a small element of tortured humanity amid the darkness of the demon.

The little spark of what Buffy chose to think of as his soul, despite Anya’s contention that it didn’t work that way, had lived through all of the demon’s sins, it knew them, had seen them as they happened, but each one had faded into the heart of the darkness. Now, though, all the sins were being exposed at once by that bright light shining down – overwhelming Spike with the magnitude of it all.

“Still say that’s an exaggeration,” she muttered, looking out over the landscape as she circled high above. “He would’ve had to have killed the whole world – twice!”

The little sparrow interrupted her musings by landing on her head and jumping up and down, as if trying to push her toward the ground.

“Okay, okay, I know,” she told it. “I just don’t know how to land. Any suggestions?”

It took off then, gliding in front of her, and she followed, folding her wings back a bit to glide behind it through the opening at the top of the mountain. The sparrow circled around in an arc near the rocky walls, descending slowly to the floor below, and Buffy followed its lead.

Even so, when she hit the ground she tumbled and rolled, ass over teakettle, coming to rest against the rocky wall in a flurry of ruffled feathers.

“Ow,” she muttered, rubbing her backside and trying to get off her new appendages so she could stand up. “Well, I continue to prove the old adage: it’s not the fall that will kill you, it’s the landing.”

Buffy finally struggled to her feet and looked around the area, finding William immediately. He was curled up in a ball on the ground, clutching his knees up to his chest like a fetus. There was smoke rising from his body, the scorching light burning him as he huddled into himself, unable to find a single patch of shade to take shelter in. Beneath him was a pool of dried blood, soaked into the sandy soil of the chasm.

Buffy ran over to him, kneeling above him and spreading her wings to shade him from the overwhelming brightness. She touched his shoulder, eliciting a painful moan from the huddled form. “William, it’s Buffy. Can you hear me?”

Near him now, she could see that his exposed skin was burned, covered with nasty, painful blisters. Some had popped and were oozing clear liquid mixed with blood, others were still distended, swollen and angry-looking. Some blotches of his skin were scorched to black, while still others were smoldering, as if ready to burst into flames at any moment.

She touched a gentle hand against his cheek. “William, it’s Buffy. What can I do?” she asked worriedly.

When nothing but a moaning answer came, she pulled on his shoulder, rolling him onto his back beneath the shelter of her outstretched wings. The gaping hole in his chest that she’d seen several months ago was still there, leaving a blood-stained hollow where his heart should have been. His white shirt and light blue vest were also caked with dried blood, each with a hole matching the one in his chest where his heart had been ripped out.

She looked around the ground for the missing piece of him; it had been here before. Had it been completely consumed by grief in the last months? Or simply burned up beneath the light of Spike’s renewed soul?

The little sparrow tweeted, then hopped up and pecked lightly at William’s hand, which was closed into a fist, then looked up at Buffy.

“What is it?” she asked, reaching for William’s hand. She pried his fingers open to find a red, crystal orb about the size of a pool ball. There were cracks and fissures through it and shards missing in places, giving it some sharp, jagged edges. It was his heart, torn from his chest and shattered when she had died again.  The metaphorical heart pulsed very slowly – too slowly for comfort – with a soft amber light from deep within.

“Oh, God, William,” she cried, picking it up and cupping it in her hands, holding it against her chest tenderly.

“How do I fix it?” she asked the sparrow. “Tell me what to do.”

Her bird-guide bounced lightly up onto the unmoving chest of William’s prone figure and looked down into the gaping hole.

Buffy nodded, understanding. She lifted his broken heart to her lips and kissed it gently, then placed the small, glowing orb of light back into William’s chest. When she pulled back, the little sparrow tweeted once to her in farewell, and slipped inside, too, blotting out the glow of the orb from Buffy’s view.

With her wings still spread wide, shading William from the blinding sun, Buffy laid her hands atop the wound in his chest, praying to the saint of lost souls for him to heal. It didn’t take long before Buffy felt something move beneath her palm, and when she lifted her hand, the hole had healed, closed over as if it had never been.

“William?” she tried again, laying a cool hand against the heated, blistered skin of his cheek. “Can you hear me?”

The manifestation of Spike’s tortured soul moaned dazedly, then blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision and his disorientation. He finally focused on her in the bright light, his brow knitting in confusion.

“Buffy?” he murmured so low she could barely hear him.

“It’s me, baby. I’m here,” she assured him.

“But you … how? I saw you. You had … shuffled off this mortal coil,” he contended, squinting up at her.

Buffy smiled down on him kindly. “Na, just took a short, out-of-body shamble. You just missed my return engagement. It’s my thing, ya know? I’m kinda like ‘The Who’. Meet the new farewell tour,  
same as the old farewell tour.”

William furrowed his brow. “Who?”

“No, ‘ _The_ Who,’” Buffy, clarified, emphasizing ‘The’. “Which is not to be confused with ‘ _Doctor_ Who’, which I am totally not. I look the same every time I come back, thank goodness! Can you imagine the confusion if I looked like Faith, or, heaven forbid, that skinny bitch Dru?”

William still looked confused but latched onto the one thing he thought he understood. “Come back? But you’re … an angel,” he breathed, taking in the gossamer wings and the glowing light above her that seemed to form a halo around her shimmering, golden hair.

Buffy shook her head and gave him a smile. “No, not really. I just borrowed it, metaphorically speaking.”

His brows furrowed deeper as he tried to sit up. She helped him, pulling him back a bit so he could lean against the inner wall of the cavernous, hollow mountain.

“Borrowed it from whom?” he asked, studying her intently.

“ _Whom_?” she repeated, emphasizing the ‘m’ at the end and grinning. “I don’t think Spike has ever said ‘whom’ to me before.”

“Well, I’m quite certain that I am not him,” William asserted, seeming a little affronted.

“Ummm, I kinda think you are,” Buffy insisted. “His soul or … um … his human essence, anyway.”

“Which he’s chosen to essentially ignore for over a century. I think that rather impolite, wouldn’t you agree? I therefore abdicate all association with the ill-mannered and uncouth vampire.”

Buffy opened her mouth, then closed it again before finally replying. “Well, I guess it was pretty rude, but considering that he’s got the evil creature of the night thing going on, maybe also to be expected? He wasn’t really sure you were even here. Not until I…”

“I remember,” William breathed, reaching a hand out to touch her face softly, his eyes meeting hers and holding her gaze. “You are a remarkable individual.”

Buffy gave him a small smile and cupped her hand over his where it rested on her cheek, turning her lips into his palm and touching a soft kiss against his heated skin.

“You are too, William,” she assured him sincerely. “To survive here all this time, alone, surrounded by the demon, beaten into submission by the darkness with just that little light… that takes a lot of strength.”

William pulled his hand away and dropped his gaze. “You flatter me, but I would not presume—”

“Don’t presume, just believe. Hey! Guardian angel here – see the wings? I must know what I’m talking about.”

“You said you borrowed them – metaphorically,” he reminded her.

Buffy shrugged. “But what metaphorical angel would lend me their metaphorical wings if I wasn’t metaphorically worthy of them?”

William considered that a moment, then was forced to nod in agreement. “That does seem unlikely.

“May I ask why the light is so bright … and painful?” he questioned, squinting out beyond her.

Buffy sighed, being reminded of her mission.

“Spike … well, he thought you had died. Which I’m gonna say might’ve been a reasonable assumption,” she began to explain, laying a hand over the bloody hole that remained in his shirt and vest. “So, he went and made a deal with a demon to … resurrect you. But it seems to have done more than that.”

“I see,” William mused, reaching one hand out from under the shade of her wings into the blazing light.  He pulled it back almost immediately. “That’s quite … uncomfortable.”

Buffy laughed. “Are you competing for the King of Understatement title, or what?”

William furrowed his brow. “Is there such a position in the monarchy?”

Buffy shook her head and waved a dismissive hand. “I just meant, that … _uncomfortable_ feeling, is causing a problem,” Buffy revealed, taking his newly-burned hand in hers. It cooled immediately as she held it, and the angry, red blisters faded back to a smooth porcelain white.

She looked at his face where she’d touched him before and only then noticed that the same thing had happened – the burned skin and blisters were gone, replaced by the pure white of a baby’s bottom. She smiled at the thought, reaching a hand out to touch his other cheek – the one on his face, not his ass.

“Let me heal you,” she requested softly, moving her hand slowly over all the painful, blistered and scorched skin.

He sat still while she touched his exposed skin, his face, neck, hands, and even his scalp beneath his soft, light brown locks.

“Is that better?” she wondered, when she’d finished.

“Indeed, yes, thank you.”

“Are you burned under your clothes, too?” she asked, reaching out to open his collar and check.

“I dare say,” William objected, catching her hand in his and stopping her. “I may well be, but that is not done in polite company.”

“Oh … right,” Buffy stammered, pulling her hand away. “It’s just … I’m fairly sure I’ve seen it before – plenty.”

“Not mine, you haven’t, I assure you. And none shall outside of a marriage bed.”

Buffy’s mouth formed an ‘O’ and her brows went up. “I see … so, William – you, I mean – never … Uhhhh … I mean, you never had a woman … before Dru?”

“Do you see a wedding band on my finger?” he replied curtly.

“Noooo,” Buffy drawled.

“Then you have your answer.”

Buffy pursed her lips together to keep from grinning. William – a romantic, poetic virgin. She tried to imagine Spike as a virgin. It didn’t really work. It was a struggle to even think ‘Spike’ and ‘virgin’ in the same sentence in her mind, they were so incongruous.

But then her grin faded, and she suddenly felt an overwhelming sorrow for virgin William. He never had the chance to become the man she knew he could have been – a good man, a good husband, a good father. His first sexual encounter had been with that crazy, Queen of the Damned, bitch, Dru. Heaven only knew what that had been like.

“Are you quite alright?” William asked, looking at her with concern as her expression saddened.

Buffy snapped back to herself and gave him a small smile. “Yeah, sorry … just thinking.”

Buffy looked around the area, trying to figure out how to shield William from the burning sun. Even in places where there should be shade, there was none. Nothing here seemed to cast a shadow except her wings. What would happen to him when she had to go?

“Great,” she muttered to herself. “I guess no shadow that means we’ll have six more weeks of crazy Spike.”

“I beg your pardon?” William inquired, not understanding her reference.

Buffy shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just trying to figure out how to … Hey! What’s that?” she asked as she spotted what looked like an entrance to a cave which she’d never seen in her previous visits.

William leaned out from beneath her shade to see what she was looking at, his skin beginning to burn immediately. Buffy shifted her wings, covering him again, and moving to the side so he could see.

“Oh … you certainly do not wish to concern yourself with that,” he said evasively. “It’s nothing, really.”

Buffy quirked a brow at him. “William, what is it? It wasn’t here before, I’m sure of it.”

“It’s … well, it’s simply not anything to be concerned with.”

“Oh, yeah, you know what? That’s not gonna work,” she informed him, standing up. “If you want to keep out of the light, you might want to stay close,” she invited as she turned to look at the opening on the other side of the hollowed-out mountain.

William scrambled to his feet and grabbed her hand. “Buffy, I beg of you. Please do not go in there.”

“Tell me what it is,” she insisted, looking back at him, nearly knocking him over with her wings when she turned. “Oh! Sorry! I forgot! New attachments!”

William scrambled back away to avoid the collision, but then hurried forward again out of the burning light as she raised her wings up like an umbrella to shelter them both.

Buffy touched his face where he’d burned and healed it quickly, then took his hand in hers, meeting his eyes. His eyes were Spike’s. A heavenly vision of blues and greys with a hint of green here and there, like pools of some tropical ocean, just begging to be leapt into. He didn’t have all the same expressions in those eyes that Spike had, but she could still read them, they were still a window into his thoughts.

“You’re afraid of it,” she murmured. “Why? Where did it come from? What’s in there?”

William shook his head despondently, and looked down, breaking eye contact with her. “Evil.”

“Well, lucky for you, we fight evil,” Buffy informed him.

“ _’We’_? Do you happen to have a mouse in your pocket?”

Buffy laughed and turned, more carefully this time, back to face the opening of the cave. “No, William. We, as in you and me.”

“I’m afraid you mistake me for someone else.”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” she insisted as she began walking toward the cave. William had little choice but to follow, staying in the shadow of her wings.

“P-perhaps Spike could be of help with this?” he suggested nervously.

“I think Spike’s probably in there,” Buffy surmised. “Maybe being held prisoner by some big-bad monster-type? Which means it’s up to us to find him and set him free.”

“Oh, good Lord,” William muttered, trying to decide which was worse – the burning light or the dark cave.

“You sound like Giles.”

“Do I? And is he a brave warrior?”

“Wellll …” Buffy hedged, getting nearer the cave entrance. “He’s got lots of school spirit – like a … Slayer cheerleader … with books instead of pom-poms.”

“I dare say, that sounds quite … ineffective,” her companion deduced, staying behind her as they approached the opening.

Buffy laughed. “You’d be surprised what you can do with books. The big, heavy ones are especially helpful for hitting things in the head.”

“Perhaps I should go see if I could find some,” William suggested, peeking out over her shoulder at the cave. “I’ll just do that, shall I?”

“Nope, you shall not,” Buffy declared, grabbing hold of his arm to keep him from running.

“B-but, I’m not who you presume me to be,” he retorted, pulling back on her grip with little effect.

“Yes, William, actually, you are exactly who I presume you to be, and it’s time that you realized it,” she insisted. “Let’s go.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Entering the cave, Buffy folded her wings down against her back. They fit snugly, compacting down smaller than they really should’ve physically been able to. The interior of the cave was dark, the only dark place she’d seen here, other than the far horizon. She, with William beside and slightly behind her, stopped just inside the opening to let their eyes adjust to the dim light. The cave opening was large, at least ten feet high and easily as wide – big enough to drive a Mack truck through – and seemed to open into a cavern that was even larger, but it was difficult to tell just how big or deep it was in the darkness beyond.

She’d no sooner blinked in an effort to get her eyes adjusted, than a form sailed at her from the gloom. She ducked instinctively, blocking the knife blade, which glimmered suddenly in the glow of the light streaming in, with her forearm. The hooded figure sailed past her, rolling to a stop on the parched sand a few feet outside the cavern’s entrance. With the scorching light sizzling down on it she could clearly see what it was, and her worst fears were confirmed: the thing that had Spike as its puppet was The First Evil.

She’d met these hooded demonic-humans before, when The First had haunted Angel some years ago. These monk-looking demons had been human at one time but had been mutilated with some type of ancient ritual which replaced their eyes with runes. It also enhanced their speed and strength, transferring them out of humankind and into the realm of demons.

Within just a moment, the monk-guy— No, wait, that wasn’t it. What had Giles called them? Buyers? Barters? Bangers? Bringers! That was it! Within just a moment, the Bringer burst into flames beneath the glare of Spike’s shiny, new soul … or whatever it was that the demon, Lloyd, had shoved inside him.  In another moment, the demon was nothing but a pile of ash on the ground, smoldering beneath the blinding light.

“Neat,” Buffy beamed. “Finally, something that works in our favor.”

“Neat?” William questioned incredulously. “You consider being attacked by a … a …” he waved his hand at the pile of ashes, unable to find a word to describe it, “‘… _neat’_?”

“The neatest,” she assured him brightly, turning back to face the darkness of the cave.

“Be ready, usually when there’s one, there are more. They’re like mice … blind, demonic mice,” she warned him. “Let’s see if we can cut their tails off with a butcher knife.”

“A carving knife,” William corrected her.

“Huh?”

“I assume you refer to the children’s verse? ‘Three blind mice. See how they run. They all ran after the farmer's wife, who cut off their tails with a carving knife,’” he quoted.

“Oh, well, butcher knives are bigger,” she insisted with a shrug. “But, whatever works.

“C’mon,” she beckoned, moving further into the darkness.

“Do you feel this is wise?” William asked moving forward with her warily.

“Doubtful,” she admitted. “But wisdom has never been my strong suit.”

Before William could reply, four more Bringers appeared from the darkness, charging as one coordinated being. Buffy ducked and swung around in one motion, landing a hard kick into the back of one of them, sending it careening out of the cave and into the light. She continued her spin, coming up with a roundhouse punch, catching the second one under the chin and sending it staggering back.

William had been swamped by the other two, driven to the ground beneath them. Buffy turned to help him and saw a knife blade flash in the dim light as one of the robed demons lifted it, preparing to strike.

“I’ll take that,” she informed it, grabbing the Bringer’s wrist and twisting hard enough that the demon not only dropped the knife but was forced to roll off William. Buffy snatched the dropped knife from thin air neatly and slashed in one fluid motion, severing the demon’s throat almost to the spine, and sending a spray of hot blood spurting over both her and William.

By then, the demon she’d hit beneath the chin had gathered itself and was charging again, its own knife drawn for battle. Buffy leapt backwards as it slashed at her mid-section, sucking her stomach nearly in to her spine to keep from being cut. It slashed at her again and she did the same, on the third swipe of the knife, Buffy jumped over the demon’s swinging arm and, using her wings for lift and forward thrust, sailed past the confused attacker, raking her own knife across his throat in the process.

She landed in a somersault, tucking her wings against her back, and rolling back up to her feet gracefully. She turned to see that demon clutching at its throat, gurgling blood spilling from between its grasping fingers. Buffy then turned her attention to William, who was still struggling with the final Bringer. They were tussling on the ground, rolling this way then that, both grappling for control of the knife. The demon had the hilt in its hands, trying to drive it into William, while William struggled valiantly to keep that from happening. 

Buffy hurried back over to them, lifting her own blade in preparation to bring it down on the Bringer, when the pair suddenly rolled, William ending up atop the blind minion of The First. With more leverage, William gained an advantage, and managed to push the demon’s arms, along with the knife, up over its head and against the ground there. The demon continued to fight, to raise the blade back up, attempting to slash or stab it into its adversary. Each time the Bringer lifted it up off the ground above its head, William slammed it back down with all his strength until, finally, it came free from the demon’s hands.

William howled a cry of victory, snatching the knife from the ground and rolling off and away from the cloaked attacker. He rolled up to his feet into a crouch, facing the Bringer, the dagger clutched tightly in his hand.

“C’mon, you currish miscreant!” William snarled, as the demon regained his feet and began to stalk warily nearer the man.

Buffy watched in horror as the Bringer charged at William with preternatural strength and speed. To her surprise, William slid to the side with the grace and elegance of a dancer, making his attacker miss completely.  With unexpected dexterity, the man lifted the blade and drove it deep into the demon’s back as it went past.

William roared in rage then, twisting the knife and driving it all the way to the hilt into his enemy’s body. He then put a foot on the Bringer’s ass and removed the knife by simple expedient of kicking the dying demon off of it, like removing a piece of tenderloin from a fondue skewer.

He turned then, wild-eyed, bloody, bruised, and disheveled, ready to face the next threat, but nothing stood in front of him except Buffy. He gasped for breath, turning to his right, then left, eyes wide, searching for something else to hit, to stab, to fight, but finding nothing.

He shouted a wordless snarl of victory up at the ceiling of the cave, before falling to his knees in the sand at his feet, breathless and exhausted, but jubilant.  His hands shook, in fact, his whole body was trembling in a rush of adrenaline, and he suddenly felt overwhelmed with fatigue.

“Oh, heavens,” he muttered, collapsing back onto his ass, the knife falling from his hand, which had suddenly lost all sensation.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Buffy asked, dropping down next to him and trying to determine if any of the blood was his.

“I … I’m certain that I do not know,” William replied, his heart still racing much too fast, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps.

“Take a deep breath and hold it, then let it out slowly,” she advised, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“In for three counts, and out for five. Just breathe,” Buffy instructed, doing it along with him.  It struck her odd that a metaphorical soul would need to breathe, but, apparently it did.

“Did … you … see?” he asked her, still gasping. He waved a hand at the Bringer that he had killed.

“I saw. I heard too … something about a ‘currish miscreant’?” she teased. Buffy didn’t really know what that meant, but just the way he said it told her it wasn’t a compliment. “William, is that proper in polite company?”

If William could’ve flushed any brighter red, he would’ve, but he was already beyond the pale in that regard from the fight.

“I … I … do apologize for my abhorrent language,” he said, his breath finally coming a bit easier. “I do not know what overcame me.”

“Uh, I’d say bloodlust or maybe survival instinct, perhaps just a plain ole hankerin’ for violence,” Buffy suggested, still smiling at him. “How do you feel?”

William took a moment to consider that, then looked at her with wide, astonished eyes. “I feel … exultant, euphoric, and a little … libidinous,” he admitted, adding the last reticently, but unable to stop himself from voicing it.

Buffy took in a deep breath of relief. “If that means what I think it does, then I had a feeling you might,” she told him. “See, you really aren’t that different from Spike. Spike loves a good brawl. It’s like downing ten dozen oysters, and usually less snot-flavored … though, to be fair, not always.”

William tilted his head and studied her in the dim light, looking enough like Spike to make Buffy’s heart flutter a bit. “You are the most extraordinary woman,” he said at last, his voice full of adoration.

“Slayer, sort of a one of a kind,” she agreed. “Or, well … two, I guess, technically…”

“No,” he interrupted her. “Not that … or not _only_ that. It’s your heart, your soul … I can feel it.”

William reached a tentative hand out toward her heart but stopped short of actually touching her. Buffy pulled his hand down against her chest, over her thudding heart, and held it there. William’s eyes fluttered closed and he sighed deeply, a feeling of overwhelming peace and joy washing over him.

“You are his heart,” he whispered before opening his eyes and meeting her gaze in the dim light. “You are _our_ heart.”

Buffy smiled softly and leaned forward very near him. “And you are mine,” she murmured against his full lips before kissing him gently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Buffy and William venture deeper into the dark cavern in search of the other half of Spike’s psyche – the vampire. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the fantabulous and I treasure her help so much -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond the pale! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	51. Dusty But Not Too Smelly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and William continue deeper into the cave trying to find Spike.

* * *

 

Buffy and William, each with one of the Bringer’s knives in their hands, made their way deeper into the dark cave. The further from the entrance they went, the darker it got, until they were simply inching along one wall by touch rather than sight.

Buffy was just beginning to wonder how they would find anything in the inky blackness when the sound of a door opening and closing came from ahead. A ribbon of light spilled from the door briefly, lighting the area in front of them and the figure that emerged. They were in a smaller passage now, only about six feet wide, she saw, not the large cavern where they’d first entered. She pressed back against the wall, putting a hand out to force William back, as well, as a Bringer strode toward them, unhindered by the darkness.

Just when she thought the demon was going to simply walk past them, it stopped moving. Although she couldn’t see it, she could feel its unseeing eyes fix on them, prickling down her spine in warning.  Before it could attack, she charged the last spot she’d heard footsteps, knife first. She did hit it, but it was only a glancing blow with her shoulder, only enough to send the Bringer into full attack-mode. A hard punch landed in the middle of her back as she went past, sending her reeling into the wall on the other side of the passageway, head first.

She gasped in pain as her forehead hit solid stone, but pushed through it to turn and reengage the Bringer. She heard scuffling just ahead of her and a muffled gasp – William! She hurried forward in the complete darkness toward the sounds, her knife pulled back, ready to plunge into the robed demon as soon as she found it. The moment her left hand felt the attacker, she swung with her right, driving the knife toward its torso with all her strength.

Her arm was stopped in mid-swing by an iron grip, and she kicked out at her captor before the words, “Stop, it’s me,” registered with her brain.

William gasped and doubled over in agony as her kick landed, hitting its mark perfectly, even in the dark.

“William?! Oh, God! What … where’s the Bringer?”

“On the ground. Dead,” he gasped out. “And I shall join him now,” he informed her, dropping to his knees and then curling into a ball on the sandy floor of the cave.

“Oh, God!” Buffy repeated, feeling around for him carefully. “I’m so sorry! I thought you were the demon!”

“That much is apparent,” he gritted out, still curled up, rocking gently to and fro on the ground to try and get the crushing agony in his groin and lower belly to stop.

Buffy nearly tripped over the Bringer’s legs as she stepped closer to William. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, touching a hand on his shoulder, or at least what felt like his shoulder, in the darkness.

When he didn’t reply she suggested, “Maybe I can heal it, like your blisters?”

William groaned and curled into an even tighter ball, protecting his nether regions. “I … think not,” he moaned.

“Because it’s not proper? Jesus! Get over it already, William! Let me help.”

“I believe you’ve done quite enough, thank you,” he grumbled, breath finally returning to his lungs.

Buffy clicked her tongue. “I said I was sorry,” she pouted, sitting back on her heels next to him in the dark. “Geez, you’d think I cut it off or something.”

“That is honestly not a helpful sentiment,” William retorted, finally able to take a full breath.

Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed. “I said I was sorry,” she mumbled again, leaning back against the wall of the cave to wait for him to recover.

“May I ask, is that your typical response to someone saying, ‘Stop, it’s me?’” William wondered, uncurling a little to see what would happen. The pain didn’t intensify, which was a relief in itself.

“I didn’t hear you in time,” Buffy defended. “It didn’t feel like it was you grabbing me. It felt … strong,” she admitted.

William finally managed to sit up by taking some deep breaths, and leaned back against the wall next to her as the stabbing pain began to subside. “You now presume I’m not strong, however you said previously that I was.”

“I meant mentally and emotionally strong. I thought you were a … poet or something,” Buffy explained. “I wasn’t aware writing poetry built muscles – unless there were some really heavy dumbbell pens back then?”

“We used fountain pens. Perhaps you’ve heard of them,” he retorted sarcastically. “But you believe that poets cannot have other pursuits, as well?”

“Well, yeah … I guess you can’t be all poet-y all the time,” Buffy admitted, her brows drawn together. “So, you worked out?”

William frowned in the dark. “No. My family was comfortable economically, I, therefore, was a gentleman of leisure and academia. I did not labor in the factories nor the fields.”

“No, I meant …” Buffy shook her head. “Never mind. So, what did you do, when you weren’t poet-ing?” 

“Well, for one, I belonged to a Gentlemen’s Club,” William informed her.

Buffy’s brows drew together in the dark. “ _You_ went to strip clubs? So, it’s okay for you to see tits and ass, but not the other way around?”

“I dare say!” William exclaimed, offended and insulted. “That is not what a Gentleman’s Club is!”

Buffy snorted. “Yeah, well, it is now. It’s a polite word for ‘tittie bar.’”

William hmphed, before explaining, “A Gentleman’s Club is a place where _gentlemen_ may gather for leisure pursuits.”

“Sounds about the same,” Buffy muttered, but William kept talking, raising his voice a bit to drown out her remark. “In addition to more urbane undertakings, we had several physical pastimes which we pursued heartily, such as calisthenics, lacrosse, fencing, and we even partook in fisticuffs, on occasion. Although, I must admit that I found the latter quite uncouth and did not join in. I was, however, rather adept with the foil, if I may be so immodest.”

“Huh,” Buffy muttered, a little surprised. “The way Spike talked…” she shook her head, letting her thoughts and words trail off.

“You have seen his musculature many times, have you not?” William asked, the pain finally down to a dull ache in the pit of his stomach.

“Well, yeah, Spike’s all about the _musculature_ , but … you look more … ummm … fluffy?” she replied, making it question.

“Indeed? And do vampires generally change their form considerably after being turned?” William wondered logically.

“Uhh… well, no, I guess not,” Buffy admitted. “Although The Master did – he got uber-ugly. He couldn’t have looked like that when he was human, cos what vamp would even touch him, let alone share bodily fluids with him?”

William cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, I can assure you that Spike has not gotten less ‘fluffy’ since becoming a vampire.”

“Huh,” Buffy repeated, wishing she could actually see William again to reassess her impression of him, but it was just too dark. Maybe it was his hair? Or his clothes, perhaps? He certainly wore more clothes than Spike, and they were looser. Maybe it was just the way he talked that made him seem less with the beefcake and more with the squishiness.  

“Shall we investigate that doorway?” William suggested when she didn’t say anything more.

Buffy put a hand on his arm as he began to rise, stopping him. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m sorry for underestimating you.”

William placed his hand over hers. “It’s quite all right, Buffy. I underestimate myself frequently.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy allowed William to go first, feeling along the wall until they found the door from which the Bringer had emerged a few minutes ago. 

He tried the knob and it turned easily, but he didn’t open the door. “It is not bolted,” he whispered to her. “What is the plan?”

“Go in. Kick ass. Rescue Spike. Don’t worry about taking names, those guys aren’t very chatty,” Buffy whispered back.

“Ah. So, you have no actual plan,” William surmised.

“I have a plan, I’m all about planning,” Buffy defended. “It’s just my plans are simple and straightforward. Go in. Kick ass. Rescue Spike.

“What do you think I am, a master villain with no dishes in the sink, limescale buildup in the shower, mountains of laundry, or toilets to clean? The bad guys don’t care about being hygienic; they can plot out every possible contingency on a big white board with colorful markers. Heroes don’t have that kinda time.”

“I see, so … still no plan, then?” William deduced.

“Not a single clue,” Buffy admitted. “Let’s go.”

William swung the door open, flooding the dark passageway with light. Buffy hurried through it, knife ready to strike, but nothing jumped at her or even looked remotely threatening. In fact, it looked very posh and homey in an old-fashioned sort of way.

“Oh, my Lord,” William gasped, coming in behind her and surveying the room.

“What is it? Do you know it?” Buffy asked, looking back at him briefly before turning to keep a wary eye out for baddies.

“Indeed. It’s … our home,” he breathed.

Buffy’s brows went up. “ _’Our_ home?’” she asked. “Now you have a mouse in your pocket? Cos, pretty sure this is not my home.”

“No … our … my mother and I. This is … was … our home,” William stammered out, moving further into the room and gazing around with wide eyes.

It looked just as he remembered it from over a century ago. Nothing seemed to have changed, from the Queen Anne styled tables, chairs, and settee, to the paintings on the walls, to the silver serving tray, right down to the doilies, and throw pillows. Even the many plants, which his mother doted on, were all still green and flourishing, and a fire roared warmly in the fireplace.

“From before Dru,” Buffy realized. “This was your home … where you grew up?”

“Yes … my entire life was here,” William acknowledged, taking a step forward to touch the writing desk, just to make sure it was real.

Buffy’s brows furrowed, looking around. “So, why is it in the cave of doom?”

“I’m certain that I do not know,” William replied a little dazedly. He was still soaking in the whole thing, memories of a too short life flooding over him like a soft, warm breeze on a summer’s day.

“Well, we better find Spike before more Bringers get here,” Buffy suggested. “Do you have a dungeon?”

William blinked, pulled from his memories, and looked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Does the house have a dungeon?” Buffy repeated.

William tilted his head and pursed his lips, looking at her like she’d grown another head. “A dungeon? What, pray tell, do you take me for?”

“Umm … Well, I just didn’t know if they came standard or if it was an optional feature in the olden days,” Buffy explained.

“I can quite assure you that the ‘ _olden days’_ of dungeons being common in average London homes never actually existed.”

“There were dungeons in London! I read about them once! Like … that guy, Henry, who liked to throw his wives into them when he got tired of them,” Buffy argued.

William’s brows went up. “ _’That guy, Henry_?’” he repeated, incredulously. “Do they not have full and accurate records of historical events in the twentieth century?”

“I’m sure they do, I just try to avoid them. They’re dusty and smelly. They make me sneeze.”

William’s jaw dropped open, then closed again. “I see, and am I also dusty and smelly?”

Buffy considered. “You are a little dusty, actually,” she pointed out, patting a hand down on his shoulder, which raised a cloud of dust motes into the air. “But you smell okay, definitely not like Grandma’s closet.”

“Well, thank heavens for small favors,” William retorted sardonically. “So, dusty but not too malodorous. Just exactly how old do you believe me to be, then?”

Buffy shrugged. “Older than Dick Clark,” she guessed.

William’s brows raised even more, if that was possible. “Well, my dear, be that as it may, I can assure you that, in general, Londoners left the use of dungeons to the nobility and the church. They were not ‘standard’ features in most homes.”

“Fine. Geez. I wasn’t judging,” she groaned. “I just thought if there was one, that’s where they’d have Spike.”

“Well, then, since there is not, I suggest we simply search. I’ll take the upstairs, shall I?” William suggested, heading for the staircase, still gripping the Bringer’s knife.

“Be careful,” Buffy called after him as she turned, her own knife in hand, to look around the downstairs.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

William made his way up the familiar steps. It felt as if he’d been transported back in time, as if the last century had not even happened. He let himself soak that feeling in, nostalgia mixed with that warm, joyful sensation of coming home again. He stopped at the top of the stairs to look down and take in the scene below. It was his home in every detail save one: it was empty. The thing that had made it home was his mother, and she was not here. All the belongings simply reminded him of her, they did not conjure her back to life.

He felt an old, painful guilt twist in his belly as he remembered the last time he’d seen his mother and quickly refocused his mind back on the mission.  His vampire counterpart was apparently being held prisoner here and needed to be rescued. William nearly laughed aloud at that thought – him, the abandoned and crushed human, rescuing the mighty demon. After living so many years literally in its shadow, it seemed quite ironic.

If not for Buffy, he would’ve quite liked to have left the demon wherever it was, let it languish for a century under someone else’s thumb. But she said it was important to free Spike, and so William would, for it was she that had freed William. She had fed his soul-fire freely, giving of her own soul to kindle the flames, expanding the light within, healing him and driving the darkness back. He would help her now.

William turned and began down the narrow hallway, checking inside each room, behind each closed door along its length, for his counterpart.  He found the vampire in the last room, the room that had been his own in life.

The platinum blond was shirtless, bloodied and beaten, and hanging by his wrists, suspended above the bed by ropes attached to the thick beams in the ceiling. His hair, usually slicked back and under control, hung in short, unruly curls around his face. He wore his typical black jeans, but nothing else. He was barefoot, his toes barely touching the down-filled coverlet on the bed, blood dripping from them to form artful blotches on the ecru fabric.

The vampire raised his head slightly when William approached, forcing his swollen and blackened eyes open to slits to see. “Bloody hell,” he murmured around his fangs, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth when he spoke. “Don’t need another lecture from you.”

“Well, you are in luck then, as I am here to rescue you, not lecture. At least, not at this very moment,” William informed him, climbing up on the bed so he could reach the ropes with his knife.

The man cut one of the ropes supporting Spike, and the vampire cursed in pain as all his weight was transferred to his other arm and shoulder, his body swinging limply from the one rope. When William cut the other rope, Spike fell bonelessly to the bed, landing in a heap of exhaustion and agony.

William jumped down off the bed and turned to face the huddled form of the vampire. He had to admit feeling some sympathy for the demon, but at the same time a feeling of vengeful vindication bloomed in his chest.

“Not entirely pleasant, is it?” William asked Spike as the blond rubbed at his shoulders, trying to lessen the stabbing pain that radiated through them.

“Never hung you by yer bloody wrists,” Spike retorted as he struggled to a sitting position.

“No, you simply beat me into submission with the bones of your victims, drowning me in their blood and shredding me with their screams,” the William replied evenly. “But you never could kill me.”

“If ya keep prattling on, I’ll give it another go,” Spike growled, his yellow eyes glowing through the narrow slits of his swollen lids, as he slid to the edge of the bed, preparing to rise.

William smiled at him ruefully. “But then, what of Buffy? You love her as much as I do. You need me—”

“Don’t need you, ya bloody poofter. Got a shiny, new soul now, don’t I?” Spike contended, as his feet touched down on the cool, smooth, wooden floor.

“Ah, yes, the one that’s driving us both to the brink of madness. It’s quite lovely, if you enjoy living on the surface of the sun,” William agreed, sarcasm dripping like venom from his tongue. “Which I’m thinking would not suit your constitution particularly well.”

“Keep on blabberin’ and I’ll give ya some of my bloody constitution,” Spike hissed, pushing up to a standing position with some difficulty.

William grabbed him by the arm to keep Spike from collapsing or falling back onto the bed, steadying him as the vampire swayed on his feet.

“That really was quite foolish, you do realize that now, do you not?” William asked as Spike wavered but did not fall with the human’s help.

“Yeah, startin’ t’ see that,” Spike agreed, reaching out to grab hold of the heavy, polished wood headboard. “Should’a waited for my head t’ stop spinning before I stood up.”

“Not that, you fool!” William chastised. “Our bright, shiny soul which you had resurrected from the firmament. It’s clean … clean as a newborn child. It will burn us both to ashes.”

Spike looked at the man, his demonic eyes narrowed in contemplation. “Thought you’d be chuffed t’ have it back.”

“My dear sir, I may not be a vampire, but I am yet a man, and not without my … sins, as you may recall,” William advised his counterpart.

Spike gave him a grim, fanged smile. “I recall fine,” he assured the man. “Which makes your bleedin’ lectures to me about _my_ sins that much more laughable.”

“It was an accident,” William argued.

“Oh, tell me another one,” Spike countered impatiently. “You just happened to _accidently_ run him through with his own dueling sword and dump ‘im in the Thames, did you?”

William clenched his jaw, his mouth hardening into a thin line. “He was hurting mother. I simply stepped in to stop it.”

“Oh, you stopped it well enough. Give ya all the kudos on that, mate. Stopped it _dead_ ,” Spike agreed as he took a tentative step forward, William still helping to steady him with a firm grip on the vampire’s arm.

“Be that as it may,” William continued. “The shiny, new soul you’ve resurrected is not … well, it’s simply unacceptable.”

Spike snorted a painful laugh at that, as one knee buckled, and he nearly fell. William ducked under the vampire’s arm and draped it over his shoulder, lifting him back to his feet and taking most of the weight on himself.

“Doubt I can send it back,” Spike groaned out, leaning heavily on William. “Contract said all sales final. No refunds, credits, or exchanges.”

“That’s what you get for shopping with unscrupulous demons,” William chastised as the two began moving as one out of the room.

Spike shook his head. He would’ve rolled his eyes, but it hurt too much. “There aren’t any other kind, ya git.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Buffy heals the vampire and tries to understand the complex relationship between the human and demon parts of Spike. The First takes umbrage with the rescue mission and strikes back.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the marvelous and I am so grateful for her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond amazing! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	52. The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy heals Spike’s injuries, but seeing Spike and William together makes her mind wander off into ‘Anya-land’ for a bit. Spike and William continue their bickering. The First strikes back.

* * *

 

“Spike!” Buffy cried as she saw William helping him down the stairs.

Spike looked up at the sound of her voice. “Buffy…” he breathed, his heart swelling with pleasure at the sight of her.

“Why didn’t you tell me Buffy was here, ya berk?” he grumbled at William.

“I greatly relish your suffering. I had no desire to alleviate it any more than strictly necessary,” William answered honestly.

She hurried up to meet them, getting on Spike’s other side and wrapping his arm around her shoulders, as William had done, to help get him down into the parlor.  The feathers of her wings brushed against his arm, and Spike tried to pry is eyes open enough to see what it was, but he was having trouble focusing, and no real explanation for them came immediately to mind. He shook it off, thinking it was just his muddled mind playing tricks on him.

They took him to the settee and William and Buffy sat down, lowering Spike down gently between them.

“Oh, Spike … what did they do?” she asked, touching a hand to his bruised and swollen cheek. As with William, his wounds began to heal under her touch.

“Tis but a scratch,” Spike assured her, trying to look smug, but failing. His swollen and bruised face making any real change of expression painful to the point of being impossible.

“Shhh, It’s okay. Just be still,” she whispered to him, moving her hand up to heal a deep cut on his forehead, right at his hairline, just under some dangling curls.

“You came,” he murmured, forcing his eyes open as much as he could to look at her, his un-beating heart tight with a profound feeling of gratitude and undying love.

Buffy gave him a reassuring smile, the utter relief of finding him flooding through her. “Of course I did. Did you think I wouldn’t?”

Spike shook his head slowly, his yellow, demonic eyes shining through the slits of bruised, blackened lids. “Ya know I’m not William, yeah? I’m the demon.”

“Kinda noticed that,” Buffy replied, running a finger over his wrinkled brow and down to his mouth, where his sharp fangs cut into his swollen lip. “But the man I love is both,” she assured him tenderly.

“And, I think you’re not just the demon, are you? If you were _just_ the demon, you’d be ripping me to shreds right now … and probably William, too, but, clearly you aren’t.”

Spike tried to sniff derisively, but his broken nose made it impossible. “It’s complicated,” he admitted.

Buffy smirked knowingly. “It always is.

“Like, am I the Slayer or Buffy?” Buffy held her hands out, palms up, lifting one, then the other, as if weighing something in each one. “I’ve got both inside me, a human soul and a Slayer’s power and instinct, but I could never separate them fully – they’re both there all the time, intertwined, balancing each other out.

“I’m guessing you and William are a bit like that? Inseparable, but separate?”

Spike shrugged one shoulder, regretting it immediately as pain ripped through him. He gritted his teeth against it before replying, “Like I said, complicated.”

Buffy nodded and turned her attention back to his injuries. “Let me heal you,” she requested, slowly moving her hands in a gentle caress over his wrinkled brow, his blackened eyes, down over his sharp cheekbones, and across his lips.  The swelling and bruises faded, and his normal, vampiric features returned with each touch of her hand.

Spike blinked, his vision cleared, and reached a hand out to touch the wings on her back, which he could now see plainly. “What’s this, then?” he asked stroking his fingers lightly over the shimmering, white feathers. They felt like nothing he’d ever touched before, downy soft but ripcord strong at the same time, warm beneath his fingers, and glimmering with a radiance that could only come from within.

“I’m an angel, can’t you tell?” Buffy replied, raising her brows in question and spreading her wings slightly to illustrate.

“An angel?” Spike chortled incredulously, but at Buffy’s sharp look, hastily turned the laugh into a cough.

“I can’t be an angel?” she asked, pouting. “I’m angelic, aren’t I?”

Spike cleared his throat, swallowing back the last of the mirth. “’Course ya are, luv,” he assured her, his voice only cracking slightly with another burble of laughter. “Reckon that makes me the devil and nancy-boy here must be the deep blue sea.”

“Meaning, I presume, that Buffy is the one we have caught between us?” William questioned dourly.

“E-Excuse me?” Buffy spluttered, looking across Spike at William, her eyes wide and, her expression indignant.

“I … err … I believe you have mistaken my meaning,” he stammered. “It’s simply a saying: ‘Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea,’ you understand. It refers to being trapped between two difficult situations. Like a rock and a hard place,” William explained.

“I’m the hard place,” Spike interjected flirtatiously, running his tongue across his vampiric teeth in case she missed his meaning.

Buffy cleared her throat. “Right … well, I’m not touching any of that with a thirty-two-and-a-half-foot pole,” she announced certainly, going back to healing Spike’s wounds.

“And I’m not caught between anything. It’s not a matter of choosing. You’re both the same person.”

Spike and William voiced their disagreement at the same time.

“Are not!”

“I beg to differ.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “You’re two halves to one whole,” she explained. “I don’t have to choose, I get you both in one handsome, hot, sweet, terrifyingly dangerous package.

“You’re like … _Spilliam_ ,” she said brightly, looking up from her ministrations, giving them a triumphant smile, pleased with her own cleverness. Then, in the next second her eyes bugged-out almost comically and her smile morphed into a wince of embarrassment, realizing how it sounded.

“Ooor not,” she amended hastily, dropping her gaze, a blush of color creeping up her cheeks in a wave of bright red heat. 

William and Spike looked at her with a mix of interest and confusion.

“Spilliam, is it?” Spike questioned, arching his scarred brow at her.

“No! No Spilliam!” Buffy said emphatically, looking back up at him, her eyes still wide. “That sounds like a really hot, sexy, and very slashy ‘ship, and I’m totally not sailing that. Not even getting near the water with that! Nope, not going there.”

Spike’s brows inched higher on his forehead as she spoke, but he said nothing, just continued looking at her curiously.

Buffy felt an overwhelming need to fill the awkward silence and began to ramble like a crazy-person. “Of course, you guys have been together for, like, a hundred years. So, who could blame you if you got a little _busy_? What else is there for you to do in here, right? Well, I guess you could fight … but we all know where that road leads! For both of you, apparently.”

“Do you know what she’s prattling on about?” William asked Spike as Buffy continued to rattle and ramble clumsily over them.

“I’m starting to get the picture,” Spike admitted, smirking. “If ya’d stop reciting the Lord’s Prayer in our brains, trying to keep that boner of yours down, I could get it in technicolor.”

“ _Have_ you been doing anything?” she asked then, looking from Spike to William. “No! Don’t answer that, cos, totally not any of my business, at all! I’m definitely not imagining anything along those lines right now, because – business not of mine! For me to picture you two knocking boots, would just be wrong! So, no way am I thinking about it. At all. Nope.”

“Knocking boots?’” William questioned, giving Spike a quizzical look.

“Bumping uglies, playing catch and pitch, boffing, shagging, screwing, rogering … any o’ that ring a bell with ya?”

William cleared his throat uncomfortably and frowned, looking down at his feet, which definitely were not clad in boots. “And where do boots come into the process?”

Spike smirked. “Bend over and drop yer drawers. I’ll demonstrate, if ya like,” he offered generously.

William hmphed and grabbed a throw pillow from the seat next to him, placing it over his lap. “I do not think that will be necessary.”

“Nice touch on the camouflage, Willie. Very inconspicuous. Sure no one would know yer about to bust yer nut under there,” Spike remarked sarcastically, rolling his demonic eyes.

Buffy continued blathering over them, her imagination now running away with her and taking her mouth along for the ride, unaware they were even saying anything. “Of course, just _thinking_ about something like that isn’t necessarily wrong, is it? Even President Carter said he committed adultery in his heart many times. And he was, like, super-old and wasn’t even from California!  And it wouldn’t be like I’m cheating on Spike. It would be like that time Xander got split in two and Anya wanted to have sexy time with them.

“Oh, God … I’ve turned into Anya!” Buffy realized in horror, her eyes going even wider as that realization settled over her.

“Bloody hell. She just might actually be an angel,” Spike conceded with a smirk. “Lucifer was one, after all.”

“What exactly is she suggesting her role would be in this scenario?” William wondered, his brow knitted in thought.

“Believe she’d play the part of the squishy, wet bits caught between the rock and the hard place,” Spike guessed, still smirking.

“Oh, that is so disturbing on so many levels,” Buffy continued, still not paying any attention to them, shaking her head in dismay. “I should absolutely stop channeling Anya, and stop thinking about two hard, alabaster bodies writhing against each other … and … and … oh, my … those lips devouring each other ... and …man, that’s so hot.”

“So, she believes we have … known each other in the biblical sense?” William asked, his face contorted in puzzlement.

Spike snorted sarcastically. “Don’t think the bible has a bloody thing t’ do with what she thinks we’ve been doing, mate. Well, not countin’ Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Is it really wrong of me to want to be in on that?” Buffy continued, trying to allay her fear of becoming Anya. “I’m just saying, who doesn’t want to do the deed with hot, sexy twins? I mean, ‘Dear Penthouse, Twins, blah, blah, blah. Best night of my life. Blah, blah’.  That doesn’t mean I’ve turned into Anya! It doesn’t make me a pervert with a giant freak flag, right?”

“Is she likening you and I to twins now?” William asked Spike, frowning. “I do not believe we are the least bit similar in any way.”

Spike rolled his demonic eyes. “We’re identical, you prat! Just I’m the cool one that gets all the sizzling hot Slayer sex, and yer the swot that stays home reading books and wanking off to ‘God Save the Queen.’”

“So, why don’t you two just drop it!?” she finished, glowering at them, her face flushed bright red, burning with heat, her chest heaving slightly with her pounding heart.

“I do not believe we were the ones carrying the chief portion of that soliloquy,” William pointed out, resting his hands on the pillow, trying to appear casual. “But if you would care to explain what knocking boots has to do with twins and freak flags, and just what role you would like to play in it, I’m certain I, for one, would be most interested.”

Buffy pointed an accusatory finger at Spike. “You shut up.”

Spike held his hands up in surrender. “Didn’t say a thing, luv,” he reminded her.

“ _Hmph_. I can hear you thinking,” she claimed, glaring at him.

“As can I, now,” William added, having lost his concentration on the Lord’s Prayer. “Oh … sweet … Jesus. Both of us? _Concurrently_? Oh … dear God in heaven. Is that even … physically possible?”

William’s eyes went wide, and his face bloomed with fire, and other parts of him also got an influx of blood. “Please do stop thinking, particularly in technicolor,” he requested of Spike, shoving the vampire hard on the shoulder.

Spike laughed wickedly, taking the shove in stride, and genuinely tried to think of something else, but with little success. Well, maybe he didn’t try too hard.

“Do stop immediately or I shall run you through with a sliver of wood!” William threatened.

“Riley Finn,” Buffy blurted out. “Think about Riley Finn!”

Spike’s expression changed in an instant, from amused and horny to angry. A low, rumbling growl emanated from his chest, and his hands balled into fists.

“Oh, thank heavens,” William sighed, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes, still holding the pillow firmly against his groin.

Buffy sighed too, shaking her head, a bit flabbergasted by her own imagination. “Just let me finish healing you, and stop being wet-dream distraction-guy,” she muttered, reaching out to work on healing the whip-marks on Spike’s shoulders and back.

“What did they do, Spike?” she asked softly, looking at the flayed skin and deep bruises that crisscrossed his smooth, tender flesh.

“Just a little friendly persuasion with a cat o’ nine tails,” he told her, leaning further forward in his seat so she could reach it all. “Had worse from you, luv.”

Buffy scowled at him. “You have not! I’ve never …” she shook her head, blinking back sudden, hot tears. “I would never hurt you like this,” she whispered, her voice cracking with pain.

Spike reached up and touched her cheek. “Sorry, Buffy. Was only making light, yeah? In poor taste, it was. Didn’t mean it.”

Buffy nodded, blinking back her tears, clenching her jaw against the rage building up inside her. The First Evil was starting to royally piss her off. Giles had better have found her something to hit by the time she got back into her own body. If not, her ex-Watcher may be the thing her fist comes in contact with, which would be decidedly unpleasant for him.

With his back healed, Spike leaned back in the seat, and Buffy began on his chest and abdomen. He hadn’t been whipped here, but runes had been carved into his flesh, and he’d been hit and kicked in the ribs multiple times, leaving them clearly broken and bruised.

William frowned in disapproval as Buffy continued her ministrations, running her hands gently over Spike’s chest and torso, healing all the cuts, breaks, and bruises there.

“The poofter thinks yer being too brazen, luv,” Spike told her, grabbing her hand in his and stopping it before it got too close to his fly. “Best not be too forward and offend his delicate sensibilities,” he advised her. “His ability to not cream in those fancy trousers of his is being sorely tested.”

“I beg your pardon! My trousers are none of your concern! I voiced no objection,” William defended from Spike’s other side, although clearly displeased with the spectacle and physically uncomfortable, still clutching the pillow in his lap.

Spike snorted mockingly, happy that Buffy had healed his broken nose, so he could do so without pain. “Can hear yer prattle in my bleedin’ brain, can’t I?”

“Yes, well, turn-about is fair play.  You’ve managed to ignore it for over a century, I’m sure you will manage again. And I’m sure if Buffy knew what was as in _your_ brain earlier—”

“Don’t kid yerself,” Spike assured him with a smirk. “She knows well enough. The angel among us put the bloody thoughts there, didn’t she?”

“Oh, my God, with the bickering and mind-reading, you two are like an old married couple!” Buffy contended.

“I resent that!” William objected vehemently.

“I second his resentment and raise ya a ‘get stuffed!’” Spike snarled at her.

Buffy took a breath and rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever. There will be plenty of time for sorting out your relationship issues later. We should probably get out of here before the blind mice show back up.

“Can you walk?” Buffy asked Spike, her lips contorted into a worried frown.

“Reckon I can do what’s got to be done, yeah?” he replied, pushing down on Buffy’s and William’s shoulders to assist his rise back to his feet.

“Yes, that’s perfectly fine, you may use me as your crutch. Thank you for asking,” William complained as Spike pressed down on him.

“Oh, blow it out your—”

“Guys!” Buffy cut Spike off, standing up as well. “Fight later, flee now.”

“Indeed,” William agreed, giving Spike a hostile glare as he also rose to go, still holding the pillow in front of him.

“I don’t think we’re gonna be in a pillow fight, William. Better find your dagger,” Buffy advised him seriously.

Spike barked out a laugh. “Think finding his _dagger_ isn’t a problem—” Spike began tauntingly, but was cut off when William punched him in the jaw with all his strength, whipping Spike’s head to the side violently.

“I will thank you to keep your uncivilized commentary to yourself,” the man snarled at the vampire, glowering at him.

Spike rubbed his jaw contemplatively, looking back at William, then shrugged. “Slayer’s stiffened yer spine along with your … _dagger_. Didn’t know you had it in ya.”

“You may be quite surprised what I have in me, _sir_ ,” William retorted, dropping the pillow back onto the couch, turning away from Buffy to surreptitiously adjust his trousers and his boner, and picking up his knife. “I would advise you to tread lightly.”

Spike held up his hands in mock surrender. “Listen to you, bein’ all plucky. Might make a real man outta you yet,” Spike taunted.

“Do not test me,” William retorted angrily.

“Oh, my God!” Buffy interrupted. “Are you both seven? Can we please just go? You’ll have all eternity to fight – later!”

Both of them ‘hmphed’ at exactly the same moment in exactly the same tone, and turned away from each other.

Buffy rolled her eyes and started for the door, certain they would follow.

“Didn’t happen to get a shiny dagger for me then, did ya, luv?” Spike asked, as he pushed by William and followed her.

“Yes, you may have mine – shall I shove it up your arse and twist?” William answered from behind him.

Spike turned on the man, saffron eyes gleaming. “You could _try_ ,” he threatened, glaring at him in challenge.

“I assure you I will do more than—” William began, seething.

“Jesus H. Christ! Will you two stop?!” Buffy interrupted. “Am I going to have to gag you?”

Spike turned back to her and smirked. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he purred, slipping his tongue out between his fangs invitingly.

Buffy huffed out a breath and rolled her eyes. “Let’s go!” she insisted again, turning away from her two companions.

“It was my impression that vampires did not need weapons, that you carried them with you at all times,” William observed, still slightly behind Spike as they all began moving toward the door again.

“I just like them. They make me feel all manly,” Spike purred seductively. “You wouldn’t know ‘bout that, though, would ya?”

“GUYS!” Buffy implored them. “Later!”

Buffy reached the door and twisted the doorknob slowly in case there was a Bringer on the other side waiting for them. It came off in her hand.

“What the…?” she gasped, holding it up in disbelief.

“I believe you have broken it, rendering it inoperable,” William observed, stepping up next to Spike, just behind her.

“I barely touched it!” she argued, looking from the doorknob in her hand to the door. “This just can’t be good,” she muttered as she took a step back and kicked the door with the heel of her boot, and promptly fell on her ass.

“Buffy!” William exclaimed, reaching down to help her up.

“The fucking thing kicked back!” she asserted as she got back to her feet, glaring at the door.

“That is highly unlikely,” William observed, shoving his shoulder against it ineffectually.

“Back up, let a real man at it,” Spike insisted, pulling William away roughly.

William huffed derisively, but backed up – well, he didn’t really have much choice.

Spike lifted his leg as Buffy had done and slammed his bare foot against the door right where the knob had been. As soon as his foot hit, he screamed in pain and fell to the floor, clutching the bottom of his foot.

Buffy knelt next to him and pulled his hands away to reveal black, scorched skin covering the entire bottom of his foot.

“I told you it kicked back,” she grumbled, vindicated, laying her hand over his foot to heal it.

“Well, this is quite inconvenient,” William observed, frowning.

Buffy and Spike both looked up at him, incredulous.

“Ya think?” she asked, rolling her eyes as she stood back up.

She then gave Spike a hand up and the three of them stood looking around the Victorian parlor warily, but nothing immediately jumped out at them or seemed the least bit threatening.

“This just can’t be of the good,” she mumbled again, gripping the knife in her hand hard enough to make her fingers begin to ache. 

“Perhaps a window, or another other door?” William suggested, but, before any of them could move, two ghostly figures shimmered to life in the room before them.

The first was clearly William, looking almost exactly like the William standing beside Buffy, although much less disheveled. The other was an older woman, beautiful, with long, wavy hair that had been blonde at one time but now was mostly silver. She looked a little jaundiced, somewhat sickly, but her eyes were bright and full of life.

“Mother,” William breathed, staring at the woman on the settee, but she didn’t seem to hear him, or even notice he, Spike, and Buffy were there.

Buffy put a hand on his arm, stopping him from moving toward her. “William, that’s not your mom,” she warned him.

“B-but … it is!” he argued, glancing at Buffy before turning back to the scene unfolding in front of him.

“I know you want it to be, but it’s not,” Buffy assured him, gripping his arm tighter, stopping him from moving despite his continued effort to do so.

On her other side, Spike also took a step forward as if to approach the woman, his yellow eyes fixed on the apparition. “No, Spike, it’s not her,” she repeated, grabbing his arm as well.

Buffy watched as the William that had manifested with his mother began to read a poem from a paper in his hand. His mother sat where the three of them had been just a moment ago, listening to her son with rapt attention.

“Yet her smell, it doth linger, painting pictures in my mind. Her eyes, balls of honey. Angel's harps her laugh. Oh, lark. Grant a sign if crook'd be Cupid's shaft. Hark, the lark, her name it hath spake. ‘Cecily’ it discharges from twixt its wee beak.”

“Oh, William....” his mother beamed, clearly proud of her poetic son.

“It's just...scribbling,” the new William dismissed her praise, straightening his wire-rimmed glasses, though clearly pleased with her approval.

“Nonsense. It's magnificent. I wonder, though, this Cecily of whom you write so often...” his mother questioned.

“Yeah, who the hell is Cecily?” Buffy wondered, squeezing a little tighter on her William’s arm.

The original William looked back at her, wincing a little. “She was no one, really.”

Buffy snorted a short laugh. “Her smell lingers, painting pictures in your mind? Her eyes are balls of honey? Her laugh is an angel’s harp?” Buffy reminded him. “Other than the smell part, which is really kinda gross, pretty sure neither of you have said any of that about _me_.

“And just what _pictures_ did her smell paint, William?” Buffy wondered, tersely. “I thought you were all proper and chaste. Or do dirty thoughts about smelly women not count?”

“I can assure you my thoughts were far from indecorous!” William defended. “She simply … smelled lovely.”

“Meaning what? She was one of those people who bathe in their cheap perfume, so if you come within ten feet of them your eyes start to burn and you get nauseous?”

“Certainly not!”

“ _Hmph_ ,” Buffy grunted out grimly, turning to Spike. “Do you know this Cecily?” she asked him.

Spike blinked, pulling his attention from the scene before them, and looked at her. “Cecily? Errr … well, yeah, might know ‘er,” he hedged.

“What did she smell like?” Buffy demanded, glaring at him.

Spike shrugged. “Food.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Fucking vampires,” she muttered.

“Well, I haven’t heard any poems about me from either of you,” she pouted, looking from Spike to William accusingly.

“He’s written a bloody Encyclopedia Britannica of poems about you!” Spike accused, waving a hand at William. “All melodramatic drivel, o’ course. There’s a whole volume just about yer hair!”

Spike effected the accent of posh, English aristocracy, which was several levels of snooty above William’s, to recite,

_“Her golden tresses unfold across me,_  
_“As rays of sun, they doth burn,_  
_“Her golden halo. Worthy, shall I ever be?_  
_“Of my angel’s love, for which I yearn.”_

 ‘“They are a good measure lovelier than the ones you write, and certainly much more virtuous,” William countered bitterly. “My current favorite of yours goes something along the lines of:

“ _Drunk on the fire, that flows in her veins_ ,  
_“Captured by her eyes, imprisoned with her chains,_  
_“To her I surrender, lost in the bottomless pain,_  
_“Her beauty my thrall, my life-force she drains,_  
_“She rides me to heaven, fucking out my brains,”_ William quoted.

Buffy bit her bottom lip, coughing slightly to stifle a laugh. “Spike, that’s really … ummm … rhyme-y,” she offered after a moment, looking up at him. “And …kinda hot,” she added, swallowing her laughter and giving him a reassuring smile.

“Yeah?” he asked shyly, pulling his bottom lip in behind his fangs.

“Pure drivel and quite loutish!” William pronounced haughtily.

“William! I loved yours, too! It was so sweet,” Buffy assured him, turning to give him a smile, as well, making him lift his chin and shoot Spike a ‘so there’ look.

“You’re just jealous ya never had your life-force drained or yer brains fucked out, you bloody poof! And you seem t’ remember it well enough for it to be so _loutish_ ,” Spike pointed out angrily.

“Because you keep it on a continuous loop in your fucked out— your _addled_ brain,” William countered.

“At least I’m not the hands-down favorite for the Upper-Class Twit of the Year award, ya bloody dolt!”

“Oh, my God! You two are unbelievable!” Buffy interjected, stopping whatever Spike was about to say next. “You both write poems for me and don’t even tell me, and now you’re gonna argue about whose are better or worse?”

Both of them dropped their eyes and began to mumble something like apologies and excuses about the poems not being quite ready for sharing, looking embarrassed and abashed.

Their mutterings were interrupted when William’s mother began to cough, a rattling wheeze that sounded like her lungs were being torn apart. She covered her mouth with a hanky, the painful-sounding cough slowly subsiding. The new William hurriedly got his mother a glass of water and she accepted it gratefully. Buffy could see blood on the hanky when the older woman pulled it away.

Buffy remembered Spike’s words when she had come to retrieve him from Sam’s clutches … err, that is, the Army barracks, about his mother being sick and that he’d cured her. Buffy had thought it was just gibberish from his tortured soul, but now she wasn’t so sure. He had not told her how he had cured his mom, but Buffy was afraid she knew the answer to that already.

Buffy turned her attention back to the scene in the parlor in time to hear William’s mother say, “I'll be all right. It's passed. Just sit with me a while, will you?”

“Of course,” the new William assured his mother, lowering himself onto the floor near her feet.

Buffy’s brows knit a little at that, but she shook it off – who was she to judge anyone? She’d just had a mental threesome with Spilliam! Buffy watched as William’s mother picked up her needlework and began to sing softly as she worked.

“ _Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard a maid sing in the valley below. ‘Oh, don't deceive me. Oh, never leave me. How could you use a poor maiden so?_ ’”

“Hey, I’ve heard that tune before,” Buffy mused to herself, then turned to the vampire at her side and asked, “Spike, weren’t you humming that when—”

Buffy’s words were cut off by Spike roaring in furious rage as he turned his glowering, golden, demonic eyes upon her.

“Oh, shit.”

* * *

 

**** NOTES ****

Monty Python’s Upper-Class Twit of the Year Award: <https://youtu.be/TSqkdcT25ss>

This is a cool video of ‘Early One Morning’ with clips interspersed from the show:  <https://youtu.be/93Z-eG1eY_E>

‘Swot’ (noun) -- Swots are the people who pay attention in class, because they want to, and because they are supposed to. They’re the people who get their homework done on a Friday night, leaving the weekend clear for a trip to the library for further reading. They use their free time to learn orchestral instruments and always remember to practice. They’re the people who get all of their Christmas presents sorted by the end of November.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: The First has triggered Spike. Will ‘Pickles’ save her this time or will William have to step up to help?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the bomb and I am so grateful for her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond amazing! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	53. Witless Prattle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy realizes that when Spike said things were ‘complicated’ within William the Bloody’s psyche, he may have been understating it. The intertwined relationship between Spike and William, the demon and the human parts of the whole, begins to unravel as The First sets off the trigger.

__

* * *

 

_"Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard a maid sing in the valley below. ‘Oh, don't deceive me. Oh, never leave me. How could you use a poor maiden so?’”_

In the next instant the demon lunged at Buffy, his glowing, yellow eyes crazed, more wild and incensed than she’d ever seen Spike in life.

Buffy gasped, barely getting an arm up in time to keep his fangs from slicing into her neck. His razor-sharp weapons cut deep into her forearm as they both tumbled down with a thud, Spike landing atop her, pinning her to the unforgiving hardwood. When she struck the floor, the knife she’d been holding was jarred loose, and skittered across the smooth wood, out of reach.

Buffy felt her new wings crack painfully against the planks of the floor as her breath was knocked from her lungs with the brutal impact. Her head cracked against the floor, her neck whipping violently, and pain shot through her from skull to tailbone. Stars burst behind her closed eyelids and, with no air in her lungs, her mouth opened in a soundless scream of agony.

Fighting through the pain with adrenaline-fueled instinct, Buffy brought a knee up between his legs, _hard_. Spike barely seemed to notice his balls being crushed as he ripped at her flesh, apparently not caring or not knowing that it wasn’t her neck. She writhed in pain as blood sprayed over her face, neck, and chest, the wild beast atop her worrying her arm like a wolf tearing flesh from a deer. She rolled this way, then that, trying to dislodge him, but he was not to be deterred from his unwavering mission: destroy.

“Pickles! Pickles!” she gasped out, barely loud enough to be heard over Spike’s growls. It had absolutely no effect on him. He didn’t flinch, didn’t hesitate even a single moment or waver in his single-minded attack. _Shit!_

“William!” she screamed next or, at least, she tried to. Her lungs still ached from the sudden impact that drove the air from them, and it came out more as a hoarse wheeze.

To her relief, William did come to her aid. He kicked Spike in the ribs violently and repeatedly, finally dislodging the vampire from Buffy and sending Spike rolling away. Buffy began to scramble back to her feet when she was knocked down again as William dove atop her. The Slayer’s arms came up just in time to block the blade that William swung down at her chest in a wide arc, both of his hands gripping the hilt of the dagger.

“William!” she grunted out through clenched teeth, using all her strength to keep him from plunging the Bringer’s knife into her heart. Her right arm was trembling with weakness and bleeding profusely from Spike’s attack, making the effort much more difficult than it otherwise would’ve been. But William wasn’t as strong as Spike, with no demonic power, and she was able to flip them over and gain a small advantage.

Straddling his thrashing body, the Slayer finally had the leverage. Buffy managed to wrest the blade from William’s grip just in time to plunge it into Spike’s abdomen when he lunged at her again from the side. The vampire screeched in pain and doubled over, collapsing on the floor next to William in spray of blood. William didn’t even notice, so focused was he on his struggle to regain the weapon from Buffy and complete his own mission of destruction.

In the background, Buffy could still hear William’s mother singing softly. She barely had a thought to spare for it, but it struck a nerve and lit up the switchboard to her Slayer instincts. Using every bit of strength she had, Buffy wrested one arm out of William’s grip and hurled the blood-soaked knife at the singing woman on the settee. It sailed right through the apparition, landing with a clatter on the floor near the fireplace, but the woman, and her bespectacled, doting son who had been at her feet, vanished in an instant. 

The song ended abruptly, and just as suddenly William and Spike both subsided. Spike writhed on the floor in pain, blood flowing from the wound in his belly, puddling beneath him on the dark wood. William, his face and neck now covered with Buffy’s blood, stared up at her, gasping for breath. His blue eyes were wide with terror and confusion as he tried to piece together what was happening, with little success.

“Buff—” he started before abruptly rolling to the side and puking violently.

Buffy scrambled off him completely, cradling her mangled, bloody arm, and slid away from them, over to where her dagger had ended up. She looked around for something to stop the bleeding and found a wide, velvet tie-back holding the heavy, long drapes open. She tugged it down and began to hastily wrap it around her ravaged arm, keeping a wary eye on her companions all the while.

“Buffy, I …” William began, sitting up and moving away from the stain of sickness he’d deposited on the floor. “Are you badly injured?”

“I’ll live,” she ground out. “Not so sure about you two, though.”

Spike moaned pitiably, pressing his hand against his stomach to staunch the bleeding. “What the bloody hell?” he muttered, looking around to try and get his bearings and figure out what was going on.

“I do not understand. I … don’t remember …” William stammered. “Please, tell me, what happened?”

“Well, Spike attacked me, and then, I guess you got jealous thinking he was having all the fun, so you got him off me so you could have a shot! That’s what happened!” Buffy replied tersely.

Spike looked at her, confusion evident even in the eyes of the demon. “The poof stabbed me?” he asked, incredulous, his hands pressed hard against the painful, gushing slash in his lower abdomen.

“No, _I_ stabbed you when you came back for seconds!” Buffy informed him, still trying to tie the bandage around her arm with her teeth and one trembling hand, with little success.

William made a move to come closer to her, to help her, but she grabbed the knife at her side and held it up threateningly. “Stay back,” she ordered, glaring at him.

“But ... your arm. Please allow me to help you,” he requested somberly.

Buffy looked from William to Spike, who was now covered in his own blood, a large pool of it puddling beneath him, and then back again. She tried to calculate the danger, but she’d forgotten her calculator in her locker. They seemed fine now, but when would The First come back for an encore performance? Apparently, The First had closed the little ‘pickles’ loophole that she’d used before, since it had had zero effect on either of them.

Finally, she decided she needed her arm bandaged soon or there would be no need for an encore. She nodded at William and lowered her knife, inviting him to come closer.

William hurried over and began to wrap her ravaged forearm with the velvet drapery tieback tightly enough to staunch the bleeding but not cut off her circulation. When he had it securely tied off, he sat back on his heels and looked at her with worried, sad eyes.

“I … I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he admitted. “I … I have lived within the empty hull of my own soul for longer than I thought possible. I have, perhaps, succumbed to madness.”

“Buffy…” Spike moaned from behind William. “Please … help me.”

Buffy sighed, a combination of frustration and uncertainty. Finally, she said, “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out, William.  Just let me … let me heal Spike and we’ll figure it out.”

William nodded forlornly and stood up, backing away from her. Buffy crawled over to where Spike lay on the once pristine, dark mahogany floor, and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder.

“Spike? Let me see, baby,” she requested tenderly, rolling him over onto his back.

“It bloody hurts … _fuuuuck_ ,” he groaned, as blood spilled copiously from between his fingers when she rolled him over.

“Sorry,” she whispered, sliding her hand beneath his blood-soaked fingers and pressing down on the deep stab wound.

The blood stopped flowing almost immediately. Within just a few seconds the flesh beneath her hand began to stitch back together, and Spike relaxed beneath her touch as the pain eased.

As she began to pull her hand away, Spike grasped it gently in his. “Buffy, what did I do? You’re … you’re bleedin’, was it me? Did I … did I hurt you?” he stammered, his golden, demonic eyes grave, searching hers for an answer.

“It wasn’t you, Spike. It was … it was whatever The First has done to control you,” she assured him, laying her other hand over his. “Both of you, apparently,” she added, looking at William grimly.

“It has something to do with that song,” Buffy told them. “It’s, like, setting you off – like a bomb … a really angry bomb with sharp fangs.”

She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze and pulled away, turning her gaze to his human doppelganger.

“William, take off your shirt,” she ordered.

“W-what?” he stammered, pulling his blood-stained jacket closed protectively.

“Take. It. Off,” she demanded from where she still sat on the floor, cradling her injured arm. “Spike – take it off him,” she ordered when William simply sat there, his arms wrapped around his torso protectively.

Spike sat up gingerly, ready for the pain to return in his lower stomach, bit it was truly gone. He got up and strode the three steps over to William, who still sat on the floor.

“Heard the lady, take it off,” he ordered also, reaching a hand down and lifting William up to his feet by the scruff of his neck.

William protested by kicking at Spike, but Spike simply shook him like an errant kitten, making the human subside.

Setting him down on his feet, Spike grabbed the collar of William’s jacket and tugged down just enough to pop a few stitches. “If ya want to be able to put it back on, ya best take it off yourself, git,” Spike warned, pulling down a little more.

“Very well!” William agreed, rolling his shoulders to free himself of Spike’s grasp and taking a step forward.

William slowly took his jacket off, then his vest, taking his time unbuttoning it – maybe more time than was strictly needed.

Annoyed, Buffy stood up and immediately regretted it, swaying on her feet, clutching her throbbing arm against her chest as her head spun.

“Buffy!” William and Spike exclaimed at once when she faltered, William stepping forward to steady her before Spike could get to her.

Buffy closed her eyes a moment to get the room to stop spinning, swallowing back a sudden rise of bile at the back of her throat. Finally, taking some deep breaths, she nodded her thanks and opened her eyes, happy to discover the room had stopped rotating on its axis.

“I’m okay … thanks,” she assured the two sets of worried eyes that bore into her. “Honestly, I’m fine, let’s just get that shirt off, okay, William?”

William sighed, resigned. He’d hoped that she’d forgotten, but no such luck. He stepped away from her few feet and continued to slowly and deliberately unbutton his vest.

“Today, William,” Buffy ground out, moving closer to him.

William sniffed derisively, making Buffy pull her lips between her teeth to smother a smile because it reminded her so much of Spike, but he quickened his pace. With his vest off, he began to unbutton his once-white, now blood-soaked, shirt. His blue eyes stared intensely at the floor, unable to look at Buffy as he did so.

“Oh, William,” Buffy sighed as the shirt fell open revealing the same runes on his chest and abdomen that had been carved in Spike’s. Spike stepped behind the man and scowled. The vampire spun him around to show Buffy William’s back, which looked very much like Spike’s had just a short while ago, crisscrossed with whip marks, his skin flayed open, bloody, and horribly bruised.

“Damn it, William,” she muttered, moving closer. “You should’ve told me.”

William pursed his lips stubbornly, glaring at Spike. “I did not … wish to appear … feeble,” he admitted, stiffening his spine. “Some here may take advantage of such …weakness.”

“That’s how you knew this cave was evil,” Buffy realized as she laid a hand on William’s back and began to heal him.

William tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement.

“But you didn’t know this house was here?” Buffy asked as she continued to move her hand over William’s back, which, now that she saw it, had to admit was just like Spike’s – exquisitely muscled, like a fine, alabaster sculpture.

“I do not recall the … event,” he admitted. “Only being dragged from the cave by those blind mice, as you call them, and deposited in the burning heat outside. I dared not return to the shelter.”

“So you stayed out there and suffered … burned,” Buffy muttered, pressing gently on his shoulder to have him turn around to face her.

William tilted his head again in a short nod of agreement. “Indeed.”

Buffy shook her head sadly as she laid her hand on a rune-carved in the flesh of his pectoral muscle. “So, it wasn’t modesty and decorum that made you stop me from opening your shirt earlier to check for more burns,” she surmised.

“It most assuredly was,” William insisted, not meeting her eyes. “Among other things…” he added, still looking past her.

Buffy laid her hand on his cheek and turned his gaze to meet hers. “You aren’t weak, William. I thought we already established that,” she assured him, drawing a snort from Spike who still stood behind him.

Buffy gave the vamp a sharp glare. “He’s not, and you know it, or you wouldn’t have _threatened_ to take his shirt off for him, you’d have just done it,” she reprimanded the vampire. “So, stop posturing.”

“Load o’ rubbish that is,” Spike muttered, lifting his chin smugly as he hooked his thumbs over his belt and squared his shoulders, posturing even more.

Buffy rolled her eyes and returned to healing William’s chest and abdomen. “I’m beginning to understand the dynamic here,” she mused as she worked, speaking to Spike. “William’s too strong for you to take out, which is why you haven’t been able to, even after a century of trying. You could beat him back, ignore him maybe, but never kill him completely.”

Buffy looked up at Spike, who still stood behind William. “And he’s been getting stronger the last few years, hasn’t he? Which is why there’s all this bickering between you two, like an old married couple, but not so much with the actual dismembering.”

“NOT married t’ the prat,” Spike growled, his eyes narrowing at her. “And not buggering ‘im either, thank you very much.”

“Which probably says more about how strong William is than about your moral fortitude, Spike,” Buffy pointed out.

Spike ‘ _hmphed’_ and walked a few steps away, scowling.

Buffy rolled her eyes and turned back to William, laying her hand on the last of his wounds. “You aren’t weak. He’s kind of afraid of you.”

William furrowed his brow and looked back over his shoulder to where Spike was standing, facing away from them. “I dare say. I don’t believe that is the case at all.”

“No? You think you’ve just won him over with your sparkling personality and wit? Spike’s not stupid. He’ll fight a battle he’s not sure he’ll win if he has to – if there’s no choice. But if he doesn’t, he’s not going there – he’ll leave and regroup,” Buffy explained. “I’ve watched his duster billowing in the wind as he’s run away more than once.”

William’s eyes glimmered in amusement. “Indeed,” he muttered, looking back at her. “But I don’t believe I can defeat him fully.”

Buffy shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I think you’re both kinda stuck with each other, like an…”

“Old married couple, yes, so you’ve said,” William finished for her, frowning. “Brilliant,” he muttered in a tone that definitely did not imply there was anything brilliant about it at all.

“Let’s move over there, okay?” Buffy suggested, tilting her head to a conversational grouping of four wing-backed chairs by the window.

William shrugged back into his shirt, buttoning it hastily. Grabbing his vest and jacket, he escorted her over to the group of the seats she’d indicated near the window. Spike followed and, just to make sure, he drove a fist into one of the panes of glass. His fist bounced off it, and he cursed in pain, shaking his hand out, grimacing.

Buffy sighed. “Yeah, I’m thinking The First really doesn’t want me out of here … not alive, anyway.”

Spike dropped down into the seat opposite her, sucking the blood from his newly gashed knuckles. “You need t’ kill us then. Now, ‘fore we’re set off again,” he told her. 

He jumped back up and strode over to retrieve the knife that she’d left on the floor, returning to his seat quickly.

“Ya rather use that, or a stake, luv?” he asked her, handing the knife back to her, hilt first.

“Uh, how ‘bout neither?” she answered disdainfully, taking the knife from his hand and laying it across her lap. “I’m not killing you. Either of you!” she added, looking at William who had taken the seat next to her after putting his bloodied vest and jacket back on. “We’ve all been through too much to just give up and let that bastard win. That’s just not happening.

“We’re gonna figure this out,” she assured them.

“Don’t be daft!” Spike argued. “If we both came at you at once—"

“Then I’ll deal with it! I’m ready for it now, it won’t take me by surprise,” she argued.

“You’re already injured!” Spike objected further, reaching out and grabbing her ravaged forearm, sending shards of agony up her arm and making her gasp, to prove his point.

Buffy punched him in the nose with her left hand, hitting him hard enough to make him let go. “I’ll deal with it,” she ground out through the pain, cradling her throbbing arm in her other.

“You should, perhaps, at least restrain us,” William suggested, rising and retrieving more of the thick, velvet tiebacks from the draperies to use for the purpose.

“Git’s right,” Spike agreed, touching his nose tenderly to assess just how broken it was.

Buffy snorted. “Well, something you both agree on. That can’t be a good sign,” she reflected dourly, taking the ties from William.

Spike stood up, turned around, and clasped his hands behind his back for her to tie his wrists. Buffy wrapped Spike’s wrists tightly with the soft, but strong, fabric, tying them in emphatic knots.

She repeated the process with William, tying his hands behind him, as well. She had to admit that she did feel a little better with that done, but she still kept her blade across her lap, in easy reach.

“Okay, let’s figure this out,” she said, when both William and Spike were seated again.

Looking at William, she asked, “What’s that song to you?”

William met her eyes with his, shaking his head. “It’s just a song … a folk song my mother sang from the time I was a boy. It was her favorite.”

“Spike told me that his mother had been sick, and he healed her. Tell me about that. How did you heal her?” Buffy asked, looking over at the vampire.

Spike’s yellow eyes dropped to the dark, wooden floor between them. He shook his head slowly, not answering her.

“Spike. Answer me,” she insisted.

Spike clenched his jaw, making the muscles in his cheek bulge, and closed his eyes, but did not answer her.

“William – you tell me, then,” she demanded, looking over to the human.

“I … I do not know,” he stammered, also unable to meet her eyes.

“Don’t bullshit me! You do know!” Buffy maintained. “And you’re gonna tell me.

“You saw what Spike’s done all these years.  You said he’s ignored you all this time, well, here’s your chance! You have our full attention.”

A sob suddenly escaped William’s lips, racking his body, his head shaking negatively as he stared resolutely at the floor.

“TELL ME!” Buffy demanded, gripping the hilt of her knife in her left, uninjured, hand and standing up. “One of you is gonna tell me or there will be pain, I swear to God.”

“Please,” William begged. “I do not know.”

She whirled on the vampire, sliding the blade of the knife beneath his chin and making him lift his eyes to hers. “Spike? I know you know! Time to man up.”

Spike closed his eyes, unable to bear her scrutiny. “I … healed ‘er,” he whispered, his voice barely audible even in the quiet room.

“Yeah, I got that part. How?” Buffy persisted. “Spike! Look at me!” she demanded, lowering the blade and transferring it to her other hand so she could slap him sharply across the face to get his full attention. “Answer me, damn it!”

She expected him to get angry, to growl or roar at her or even attack, but he did none of that. He did open his eyes finally, and, to her surprise, the demon blinked back tears as he stared up at her.

“Deserve that and more,” he agreed dourly. “But, please, Buffy, don’t make me say,” he begged her.

“Spike,” she pleaded, her voice softening. “Just tell me.”

Spike clamped his eyes closed again, tears spilling down his cheeks, shaking his head negatively. “It … hurts, Buffy. It’s just … too much,” he finally said, as a sob shook the demon’s strong shoulders. He seemed to have diminished in stature in the last few seconds, caving in on himself, trying to disappear.

Buffy’s heart crumbled. How bad must it have been to affect the demon this profoundly? She would’ve expected it from the man, but from the demon? She dropped down to her knees in front of the crestfallen vamp. “Trust me, Spike. Let me in. Please, let me help you. Let me save you. I can’t do it without your help.”

Spike swallowed hard, blinking rapidly to try and stop the tears, doing his best to fight back the rising panic that her request created. “Please, don’t,” he pleaded with her, dropping his chin to his chest in shame.

“Why does it hurt so much?” Buffy asked him, setting her weapon down and reaching out to touch his tear-stained cheek.

Behind her, she could hear William sobbing as well, his breath coming in those gulping gasps like an overwrought child. She thought she might be able to break him more easily than Spike, but it had been Spike that The First had kept strung up in here, not William. The key to breaking The First’s hold had to lie with the demon half of William the Bloody.

Spike shook his head, his eyes clamped closed. “I loved her so much, Buffy,” Spike admitted, trying to sniff back his tears.

“I know, baby. I know you did, so you wanted to help her, to heal her, right? If I’d had a way to heal my mom, I would’ve done it.”

Spike nodded forlornly. “Do anything for her,” Spike murmured. “Would die for her … kill for her,” he admitted. “Anything to protect her.”

Buffy nodded. “Of course you would. She was your mother.”

“She was m’ world,” Spike revealed in a hoarse whisper, baring his heart to her.

“How did you heal your mother?” Buffy asked again, softly.

Spike took a deep breath and raised his tear-filled demon eyes to hers before speaking. “Please don’t hate me, Buffy,” he begged.

Buffy shook her head. “No, I’ll never hate you. I love you,” she assured him. “Tell me, how did you heal her?”

“I turned her. Please, Buffy … please forgive me,” he begged, his yellow eyes imploring her to understand.

She nodded understandingly, sitting back on her heels in front of him. “It’s okay, Spike. I forgive you, baby, I do,” she assured him. “Where is she now? Do you know?”

Spike shook his head, his demonic eyes still shimmering with tears. “Dust,” he admitted forlornly.

Buffy’s mouth gaped open a moment in surprise before asking, “What happened?”

Spike took another deep breath, but, didn’t answer, he just kept shaking his head miserably.

Buffy turned back to William and asked again, “What happened to your mom?”

William was shaking his head as well, his blue eyes open, glimmering with emotion, but unfocused. His tears had stopped, but his body was still racked with the aftershocks of sobs. He seemed lost in his own world, perhaps in the past, not seeing or hearing Buffy at all.

“Was it a Slayer?” she asked, looking between the two of them. “Is that why you started hunting Slayers?” she asked Spike.

Neither William nor Spike answered her. She sighed and stood up, feeling exhausted. She wondered how long she’d been here – it seemed like days. Buffy hoped it hadn’t been that long back in Sunnydale.

She had one last card to play, one that Willow had endowed her with before sending her down this rabbit hole. Buffy laid her knife down on her chair, then reached her hands out between the two halves of the man, the vampire, that she loved – human soul and the demonic power. She rested her palms upon each of their heads, took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly, closing her eyes and clearing her mind.

With her mind as clear as she could get it – which wasn’t a lot, but she hoped it was enough – Buffy invoked, “Aparecium! Reveal!”

At first, she thought nothing had happened. She wasn’t entirely sure what was supposed to happen, but thought at least one of them, either Spike or William, should start spilling the beans. To her dismay, they both remained silent and depressingly grim.

Before she could analyze it further or try it again, she heard voices coming from the sitting area near the fireplace where they had been earlier.

The sound brought William and Spike out of their dazed, grief-ridden stupors, as well. Buffy, Spike, and William all looked up to see William and his mother speaking. They looked similar to the apparitions that had been there earlier, but with some significant differences. His mother now looked radiant and well, rather than ill and pallid; William looked somewhat disheveled, and the wire-rimmed glasses were no longer perched on his nose.

Buffy grabbed her knife, brows creased with uncertainty, as she took a few slow steps closer to the apparitions.  

Spike and William rose also, hands still bound behind their backs, both of them focused in horrified astonishment on the scene unfolding before them. It was like watching a train barreling down the tracks toward them – they could see it coming, knew it would destroy them, but were unable to move out of the way. They couldn’t even look away or close their eyes as it bore down on them, even though it was sure to utterly crush them both beneath its considerable weight.

“Look at you,” the apparition of William beamed at his mother, clearly pleased.

“Mm, yes. All better,” she agreed with a smile, but not much enthusiasm in her voice.

“You're glowing!” her son exclaimed, delighted.

“Am I? Well, I suppose I have you to thank for that, don't I? How ever will I repay you?”

Now standing next to Buffy, her William dropped his head again, clamping his eyes closed tightly. “Make it stop … please, make it stop,” he begged.

“It’s not going to stop,” Buffy told him. “I’m guessing this is something you really need to see, both of you,” she deduced, looking over at Spike, who was watching in horrified fascination.

“Open your eyes, William,” Buffy demanded of the man next to her, shaking him slightly. “You need to see this.”

Her William kept shaking his head, chin to chest, his eyes clamped closed. She scowled at him, but wasn’t sure how to force his eyes open to watch it. Well, he could hear, anyway.

When Buffy looked back at the scene, the apparition of William was speaking triumphantly with his mother, “First, we'll feast. Then the night is yours. Theater, perhaps. Dancing? Tell me, what's your pleasure?”

“Pleasure? To take my leave of you, of course,” his mother retorted tersely. " _’The lark hath spake from twixt its wee beak?_ ’" she quoted. “You honestly thought I could bear an eternity listening to that twaddle?”

“Mother?” past William questioned, his joy at her recovery falling away, replaced by confusion and concern.

“I hate to be cruel …” his mother began, but then rolled her eyes and laughed acerbically. “No, I don't. I _used_ to hate to be cruel in life. Now, I find it rather freeing. Nothing less will pry your greedy little fingers off my apron strings, will it?” she taunted nastily.

“Ever since the day you first slithered from me like a parasite, you’ve done nothing but cling to me, like a leech, sucking me dry,” she spat at him. “Had I known better, I could have spared myself a lifetime of tedium and just dashed your brains out when I first saw you.”

“God, Buffy, please … make it stop,” her William begged, tears streaming down his face as he relived what was possibly the worst night of his existence. Even Buffy’s death – deaths – seemed to pale in the face of this horrible night from so long ago.

Buffy looked from her William to Spike to find the vampire equally distressed by the scene playing out. Although he stood stoically, his yellow eyes locked on the tableau from his past, there were tears streaming freely down his blood-stained cheeks, dripping like rivers from his chin. With his hands tied behind his back, he couldn’t wipe them away, so they just continued to pour down, unhindered.

Buffy turned back to the mother and son, tears stinging her own eyes as she watched. Her own heart was breaking as she watched the heart and soul of the loving son be torn to shreds by his mother’s words.

“Make it stop,” her William implored her again.

“I can’t, William. I’m sorry … I’m so sorry. The only way out of the pain is through it,” she told him sympathetically, wishing it wasn’t true, wishing there was another way, but knowing there wasn’t.

William’s mother was speaking again, flaying her son’s heart open with each sharp word. “God, I prayed you'd find a woman to release me, but you scarcely showed an interest. Who could compare to your doddering, housebound mum? A captive audience for your witless prattle,” his mother continued to rip into him, heartless and cruel.

The past William backed away from his mother, stunned and wounded, as if she’d physically struck him. This wasn’t the woman he knew and loved. This wasn’t the woman who had always supported him, loved him, and comforted him. How could she be so cruel?

“You want to run, don't you?” his mother taunted. “Scamper off and cry to your new little trollop. Do you think you'll be able to love her? Think you'll be able to touch her without feeling me? All you ever wanted was to be back inside my body. You finally got your wish, didn't you? Sank your fangs into me. An eternal kiss.”

“No! I only wanted to make you well!” her son insisted, horrified.

“You wanted your grubby little hands on me, your body pressed against mine! Perhaps you'd like a chance to finish off what you started,” she suggested, moving toward him. “Just like this. This is what you always wanted. Who's my dark little prince?” she taunted, clasping his face between her palms and brushing a kiss to his lips.

“No!” her son protested, pushing her away roughly. “I love you. I did. Not like this. Never like this!”

“Get out. Get out!” she screamed at him, grabbing her unneeded cane from where it rested against the settee.

“No, no, no …” Buffy’s William cried, shaking his head in denial as he felt his heart being torn out yet again. “Please stop.”

Buffy watched as William’s mum vamped out and swung the cane at her son time and again, striking him sharply about the head and shoulders, until he grabbed it and wrested it from her hands, breaking it in the process.

“There, there, precious,” she cooed behind her fangs, “It will only hurt for a moment.”

“I'm sorry.” Her son’s whispered, heart-wrenching apology came only a second before he drove the broken end of the cane into his mother’s unbeating heart.

Buffy gasped in surprise and horror as William’s mother dusted at her sire’s – her son’s – hand.

Her William and Spike both collapsed as one, their knees giving way beneath the weight of the memory. They sank down onto the polished wooden floor of William’s childhood home, melting into puddles of heartbreak and shame.

She looked back at the broken vampire who had just staked his mother. Past-William stood unmoving, still holding the stake, staring at the pile of dust covering the floor. The only sign that he was more than a statue were the tears of heartbreak that sluiced down his cheeks and splashed into the dusty ash at his feet.

“Oh, Spike,” she breathed. “You should have told me.”

The stake-wielding William also dropped to his knees, landing amid the pile of dust covering the floor. “I’m sorry … mother, please forgive me,” he cried into the deafening silence left behind. And then he was gone.

The room stood empty again with nothing but the fire crackling in the hearth and the sobs of the two men at her feet to fill the void left behind.

Buffy dropped to her knees between them. They were both sobbing uncontrollably now, curled up on their sides on the cool wooden floor in unimaginable pain. It was as if that whole nightmare had just happened to them, rather than being a long-ago memory.

“William, Spike, listen to me,” Buffy insisted in a sympathetic tone, laying her hand on William’s shoulder. “That was not your mother talking.”

“Who else?” William cried as he began to rock, unable to get the deep, festering agony of the memory to ease.

“It was the demon. She wasn’t strong enough to fight it. She was sick, and it took her over completely. Baby, you’ve got to listen to me. It wasn’t your mom saying those things,” Buffy maintained as she wrapped her uninjured arm over his back, trying to ease his suffering.

He shook his head and cried, sobs wracking his frame, which suddenly seemed fragile and terribly breakable, like a glass figurine, beneath her touch.

“What if it was?” he asked her between gasping sobs. “What if the demon only uncovered the truth? What if she had despised me my entire life? What if it only washed away the façade of love she affected in life?”

“No, that’s not what it did,” Buffy assured him. “William, she was your mom! She loved you.”

“How can you know that?” he asked forlornly.

“Because I know you,” Buffy replied sincerely. “You are worthy of love, you are a good man and a good son. You have a kind heart and sharp mind. You’re loyal and giving, sweet and generous, you would sacrifice anything for the ones you love. I know you, William. And I know she loved you.”

William’s sobs slowly lessened, though his tears continued to fall freely, and he continued to shake his head negatively where it rested on the floor.

“William, tell me about your mom. What was she like?” Buffy tried.

“You saw,” he burbled, never looking up or uncurling from his huddled position on the floor.

“No. I saw a demon. Tell me about your mom, before. I bet she was like my mom, huh? Did she cook way too much food on the holidays and bake cakes for your birthdays? Did she take you out to the park to play when you were a kid? Did she teach you to …” Buffy was gonna say ‘drive’ but obviously, that was wrong, “… ride a horse?”

William sniffed, his sobs waning a bit more as he tried valiantly to regain control of his emotions. “She loved flowers,” he said finally, his voice hoarse and rough as gravel.

“Did she garden?” Buffy prompted.

William nodded, but it was difficult to see the way he was folded in on himself.

“What kind of flowers did she like best?”

“Hydrangeas,” he answered hoarsely, his voice cracking.

“Those are pretty,” Buffy agreed. “Why do you think she liked them so much?”

William sniffed again, the scholar gaining back some semblance of control from the heartbroken boy. “She could produce a dazzling display of varying colors with different amendments to the soil. She was quite skilled at it. They were so beautiful; the garden club would come each summer for a tour.”

“And what else?” Buffy continued, turning to the heartbroken vampire on her other side. “Spike, tell me about her. Did she sing in a choir, maybe at the church? She had a lovely voice. Did she teach you to sing?”

Spike sniffed, trying to dig himself directly into and through the floor by rocking his body back and forth methodically.

“Spike? Tell me more, please?” Buffy prodded, laying a hand on his shoulder, as well.

“Loved to sing, she did,” he told Buffy finally, his voice also rough and breaking with emotion. “Soloist for the church when she was a lass, before she met … father. Played the organ, as well. Bigger than the one ya dropped on me,” he tried to joke, but the laugh he tried to force came out more as a sob.

Buffy gave a sad smile and squeezed his shoulder comfortingly, even though pain shot up her arm with the effort.

“But when she married father … she had no time for such … things. Then, later, she fell ill…” Spike’s voice trailed off, the memory of his mother’s illness silencing him.

“I’m sorry, baby. I know how hard that is,” Buffy empathized.

Spike and William both nodded gravely, still not rising from their huddled positions on the floor.

“But I bet your mom was a lot like mine, wasn’t she?” Buffy asked, not directing the question at either one of them specifically.

William answered her, having wrangled more control of his emotions than Spike. “Your mother was a virtuous lady. She considered us a man, not a monster. She gave me something to cling to … a light in the darkness – like you do. She was kind and … and … yes, she was very much like mother,” he admitted, finally struggling to sit up, which was made more difficult with his hands tied behind his back.

“William, you know that was not your mom saying those things, don’t you? That was not her,” Buffy insisted again. “It wasn’t some horrible hidden truth suddenly coming out. They were lies being used by a demon to hurt you. It’s what demons do for fun.

“Don’t you remember Angelus? Don’t you remember the things he said and did?”

Buffy shook her head sadly, remembering. “Maybe you don’t, maybe you didn’t know the things he said to me,” she admitted. “But what he said wasn’t true; it was just his way of torturing me without even touching me. He just did it because he could, because he got off on it, because he loved to play with his food before he killed it,” Buffy insisted.

“If she was like my mom – and I believe she was – then I know she would never say, or even _think_ that way. Your mother loved you, just like my mother loved me.”

William nodded and swallowed hard, leaning back against a table leg behind him, his eyes cast down. “This ache has been in my heart for so long, Buffy,” he confessed. “My whole life seemed a falsehood, as if she’d never truly loved me.”

He looked up at her finally, his blue eyes showing the depth of his heartbreak. “But it was those last minutes that were the lie. I can see it now. I thought she would feel as I did.”

“William, the fact that you’re here, living side-by-side with the demon, is … well, I don’t think it happens that way normally. The demon buries the humanity, kicks it to the curb and takes over, it doesn’t set up house with it. She couldn’t help it – she was just too weak to fight the demon’s cruelty. That wasn’t her talking.

“I know that she’d never want you hurt. You were her son. She loved you, and she always will,” Buffy continued to assure him.

William closed his eyes and nodded, new tears washing tracks through the blood on his face. “She loved me,” he whispered to himself.

Buffy laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “She did,” she confirmed softly, pulling him against her and wrapping her good arm around his shoulders. “And so do I.”

Next to them, Spike struggled up to a sitting position as well. His demonic eyes a mirror of the misery that shone in William’s.

“Spike, baby. You didn’t know what would happen,” Buffy told him reassuringly, reaching her injured hand out to gently wipe the tears from his cheeks.

Spike closed his eyes and nodded, taking in a deep, un-needed breath, his tears slowing. “Seen it happen since … just the same way,” he admitted. “But … it bloody hurt so much at the time. Blamed m’self, I did. Thought I’d … done it wrong.”

Spike looked up at her then, blinking the last of his tears away. “I staked her, Buffy. I killed my mum … did I send her to hell?” Spike’s tears welled up again just that quickly as he looked at Buffy for answers.

“No, Spike … no,” Buffy assured him, trying to pull him closer to her so she could comfort both heartbroken halves of William the Bloody.

“You released her soul from the ether and let her go on to heaven,” Buffy pledged as he moved closer to her, sliding across the short distance into her embrace.

“She loves you … she loves her son, and I know she’d love the man you are now. She’d be so proud of you, of who you are, of who you’ve fought so hard to become. She’d never want you blaming yourself for what happened, I guarantee you,” Buffy swore, wrapping her injured arm around Spike and pulling him against her as she’d done William on the other side.

The two men leaned into her strength, into her comfort, resting their weary heads on her shoulders, letting her heal their broken hearts with her gentle embrace.

“She loved you,” Buffy whispered to them both. “Never forget that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: The First is not done with them. Will they be able to get out of here alive?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the bomb and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond amazing! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	54. A Rock and a Hard Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy, Spike, and William find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place.

* * *

 

“Back to slither your dirty little body against mine again, William?”

William, Spike, and Buffy, still huddled together on the floor, all jerked their attention up to the woman who stood in front of them.

She scowled down at them scornfully, her blue eyes condescending and contemptuous.

“Mother!” William exclaimed, struggling to get to his feet, his hands still tied behind him.

Buffy jumped up and grabbed his upper arm, helping him to his feet while at the same time restraining him. “It’s not your mother, William. It’s a trick of The First. It’s not her!”

Next to them, Spike got to his knees and also struggled to rise with his hands still restrained. Buffy helped him up, too, and the three stood facing the apparition of William’s mother. She looked much as she had just before William had staked her. Her long, wavy blonde hair was full and luscious, her complexion looked healthier than she had in life, but her bright eyes were hard and cold, and clearly disapproving.

“I knew you would never amount to anything, you driveling little twit! Look at you now! Sharing a woman with a vile creature like him,” she spat, waving a hand at Spike. “You never could satisfy a woman, could you? Not like a real man, not like your father! He was strong and virile. A true man, not a sniveling, pathetic excuse for one!” she claimed hurtfully.

Spike’s and William’s eyes met, looking over Buffy’s head. Their gazes held for a meaningful moment, before they looked back at the woman standing before them, their expressions suddenly set into composed masks of stone.

“What’s the matter, _Willie_? Don’t have any of your foolish prattle written down to bore me with? Is your brain too stained by debauchery, lusting after this new little whore, to allow you to speak?” she taunted him.

“You are not my mother,” William stated confidently, narrowing his eyes at her menacingly.

“Of course I am. You should know better than anyone – you made me this way, just so you could be with me forever, don’t you remember? You wanted to slip your lifeless, little appendage back into my body, and keep shoving it deeper – forever deeper!

“Did you bring this little tart with you to watch as you push back inside me now?” William’s mother sneered at them. “Does she enjoy observing such vulgarities? Is she as depraved and aberrant as you?”

“Hey!” Buffy objected. “This ‘depraved little tart’ is gonna kick your ass all the way back to hell!”

William’s mother laughed wickedly. “How will you ever find the time, dear? Between spreading your legs for any evil creature that comes along, dying, and having mental breakdowns, I doubt you’ll have the time or energy.”

“I’ll pencil you into my schedule,” Buffy hissed, dropping her hold on William and Spike as her hands balled into fists.

“I welcome the distraction … for that’s all you are, a small, meaningless distraction,” the apparition dismissed her with a wave of her hand, turning her attention back to her son.

William took a step forward, no longer restrained by Buffy’s hand gripping his arm. “You, madam, are not my mother. And I would thank you to apologize to Miss Summers for your uncouth behavior, abhorrent insults, and foul mouth.”

“Certainly, my dear boy,” his mother cooed sarcastically. “Right after you rip her heart out.”

William’s mother smiled malevolently and began to sing, “ _Early one morning, just as the sun was rising…”_

Buffy tensed, just then noticing that she’d didn’t have her dagger in her hand. She hastily searched around her feet, only then realizing she had left it over by the chairs where they’d been sitting near the window, several feet away.

She began to back carefully away from Spike and William, making her way over toward the window. Her eyes remained locked on them, warily waiting for them to turn on her as she backed up. She bumped against an end table, toppling the lamp atop it over and sending it crashing to the floor. Glass shattered around her, sending shards flying in all directions, but she didn’t spare a thought for it, quickly dodging around the table to make her way back to her weapon.

William’s mother continued her tune as Buffy backed away. “ _I heard a maid sing in the valley below. ‘Oh, don't deceive me…_ ”

“That’s a lovely tune ya got there,” Spike commented casually, standing shoulder to shoulder with William in front of the apparition of his mother.

“I believe we are supposed to rip Buffy’s heart out now,” William informed Spike impassively.

“Oh? Were we?” the vampire asked conversationally.

“Indeed. That seems to be the plan,” William assured him.

“ _Oh, never leave me. How could you use a poor maiden so?”_ William’s mother continued singing as they spoke.

“Huh. Funny … not really feelin’ it. How ‘bout you, William?” Spike asked.

“If truth be told, I am not either. Isn’t that peculiar?” William replied casually.

“Very peculiar,” Spike agreed, giving the apparition a smirk.

“I have grown quite weary of this song, however. Do you suppose we could do something to cease this caterwauling?” William wondered.

“I reckon if Buffy could use that pointy object of hers t’ cut our hands free, we might find something we could do to put an end to it,” Spike suggested in a voice that was clearly directed at Buffy, who had retrieved her dagger and was watching them cautiously from a prudent distance, near the windows.

She bit her lip, watching another moment as William’s mother continued with the song, but neither Spike nor William seemed the least bit affected by it. She sighed in relief and made her way quickly back across the room to them, the broken glass of the lamp crunching loudly under her boots.

“Are you sure?” she asked them quietly as she moved up behind them.

“Absolutely,” William assured her as Spike nodded his agreement.

Buffy cut William free first, careful to not nick him with the sharp blade in the process. He pulled his hands up in front of him, rubbing his wrists where the velvet tie had been cutting into his flesh. He focused a menacing, blue gaze on the apparition of his mother, who had finally, thankfully, stopped singing.

In a moment, Spike was also free, and the two halves of the whole moved ominously toward the woman, who was glaring at them disdainfully.

“I am not done with you,” she threatened, taking a step back from the approaching men.

“Yeah? Well, we’re bloody done with _you_ ,” Spike growled back.

Suddenly the apparition of William’s mother morphed into the true form of The First and sprang at them, incorporeal as a ghost. Despite the vision clearly being ethereal, Spike and William reflexively lurched back as the original evil burgeoned into the manifestation of a massive demon.

Its form nearly hit the high ceiling and spread across half the room, enormous and threatening. It had the head and horns of a bull, glowing red eyes, and strong, but skeletal, arms several feet long, which could’ve easily crushed William and Spike if they had been corporeal. The body of the ghostly demon was nondescript, apart from a bright, amber, glowing heart of evil that burned in the center which could be felt by all the other inhabitants of the room.

Buffy, William, and Spike had little time to dwell on the rancorous, malevolent sensation that swept over them, however. In the next instant, The First Evil raised its enormous head and loosed a wrathful, sonorous bellow which sent the three companions to their knees in agony, hands clasped over their ears.

Suddenly, the entire room began to shake and crumble around them. Paintings fell from the walls, vases and lamps crashed to the floor, potted plants fell over, and furniture began to quake and bounce as if alive. Buffy pushed herself back to her feet, fighting through the painful howl of the demon, and hurried toward Spike and William.

“We have to get out of here!” she screamed, trying to be heard over the blaring seismic bellow, grabbing each of them by the arm and tugging them toward the door.

Debris began raining down on them from above, pelting them with everything from pebbles to basketball-sized rocks and splintered timbers as they all ran for the door. They dodged and deflected the falling debris, sometimes getting knocked down by large chunks of stone crashing down on them, but they scurried back to their feet as quickly as possible and kept moving.

“But it will not open!” William yelled, keeping his arms up over his head to deflect the downpour of rubble, as the demon continued to scream, seemingly vibrating the entire world.

Buffy pointed a finger at William, then at Spike, and then at herself, then pointed at the door. There was no option, they had to get that door open or be buried here, perhaps trapped forever. She had no idea what that would mean to any of them, to her and Spike back in Sunnydale, but she was pretty sure she didn’t want to find out.

Spike and William nodded their understanding and the three of them lined up in front of the immovable door, still ducking falling rocks and shielding their eyes from the dust and dirt that showered down on them. The floor beneath their feet bucked and swayed, the wooden boards cracking and snapping, threatening to throw them off balance with each new tremor. They shifted and lurched drunkenly, holding to each other for support to simply remain standing, waiting for their moment.

When a small lull came in the roiling beneath them, Buffy didn’t hesitate, screaming, “NOW!” at the top of her lungs.

The three moved as one, rushing the door with the power of a Slayer, the strength of a demon, and the heart of a lion. They crashed against it with shrieks and growls and roars of effort and the wood cracked, the casing splintering near the hinges, but it did not open. They were thrown back from the enchanted door, their clothes scorched where they’d hit it, but they all scrambled back to their feet again, patting out any burning embers that clung to them.

“AGAIN!” she ordered, yelling to be heard over the cacophony of breaking glass, falling rocks, splintering wood, and howling demon.

The three hurried back in a drunken stagger to charge again, still ducking and dodging while rocks tumbled down atop them and around them as they crossed the jouncing, splintered, debris-strewn floor.

Buffy looked up and saw large cracks opening in the ceiling above. When those got large enough, the whole mountain could come spilling down, crushing them, drowning them in rocks and sand. She wasted no time, not waiting for any small respite in the jarring of the floor. They had to go. Now.

As soon as Spike and William were turned and had a moment to set, she screamed again for them to charge. Again they moved as one, turning their shoulders at the last moment, throwing their bodies against the door with every ounce of power and will they had.

The door splintered further, a long crack right up the center, but the weakest point, where the hinges attached to the frame, exploded in a shower of wooden shards. The door crashed to the ground, whatever magic had been protecting it failing as it came free from its moorings. The three prisoners rode it down as it thudded against the sandy floor of the dark cavern outside.

They scrambled back to their feet atop the thick, wooden door, bathed in the soft firelight that still shone from William’s home at their back. The ground here was quaking below them, as well, and the walls shook as dirt and pebbles sifted through growing cracks in the mountain above them.

The First screeched in furious outrage, the volume of its bellow redoubling, and everything around them began to crumble.

“RUN!” Buffy shouted, unsure if either Spike or William could even hear her. Confident that they would follow, even if they had not heard, she took off running into the inky blackness of the cave.

After about twenty yards, Spike caught her arm and jerked her back, changing her direction abruptly. “THIS WAY!” he screamed vehemently, tugging at her arm and pulling her to the left.

Buffy had no time to argue or ask if he could actually see in the darkness or if he knew where he was going, she could only trust that he could and did.

As she changed direction, she clearly heard the mountain crumbling behind them, a low base roar beneath The First’s incensed screech. The catastrophic collapse was beginning with William’s home and rolling like thunder toward them.

The sound of The First’s bellow ceased suddenly. That should have been a relief, except that it only made the sound of the collapsing cavern that much more ominous and terrifying, like an avalanche of solid rock rolling toward them. 

“RUN!” Spike ordered her, dragging her forward as she stumbled with the change in direction, and then nearly fell over some unseen obstacle beneath her feet. She realized when she kicked and nearly tripped over something soft, that it was one of the Bringers they had killed on the way in. So, Spike did know the right way!

“WILLIAM!” Buffy screamed, trying in vain to see if he was with them, but being immediately relieved when he answered her from the other side of the vampire.

And then they were all three running for their lives, Spike trying to warn them of rocks or crevices as they made their way through the blackness. They caught each other when one stumbled, which seemed almost constant in the darkness. Spike was usually the one to pull them back to their feet when they fell, propelling his two blind companions ever forward.

Buffy could hear the mountain crashing down into the tunnel behind them, and it seemed to be getting closer and closer with each passing moment. It was clearly moving faster than they were. She suddenly knew how Indiana Jones felt trying to escape the cave with the golden idol at the beginning of ‘Raiders’. She really hoped no darts started shooting out of the walls at them, she wasn’t sure she could take that on top of everything else. She was no Indiana Jones, for heaven’s sake!

Spike tugged her to the left once again, around a bend in the tunnel and, for the first time in too long, she could see light! She hoped to hell it wasn’t a train coming at them as they barreled toward the pinprick of light in the sea of black.

They were in the large cavern now, the one where she and William had first entered, getting closer and closer to the exit from the cave of doom. They were close to getting out, but their progress was being slowed as more rocks and even some stalactites crashed down all around them. They ducked and stumbled, lurched drunkenly and fell, were pulled back to their feet and propelled forward. They protected their heads with their bruised and battered arms, the rain of heavy rock becoming increasingly plentiful and painful as they moved ever-closer to escape, but would it be enough?

The wide cavern was closing in on them, collapsing at an alarming rate, the falling debris literally nipping at their heels as they ran for their lives, threatening to box them in. The sound was deafening and terrifying, even more than The First’s bellow of rage, because this was solid and painful and most definitely deadly.

“JUMP!” Spike screamed when they were five feet from the quickly crumbling cavern entrance.

Rocks and sand were falling into it, threatening to seal it closed and trap them, burying them alive. Behind them more rocks were trying to swallow their legs as a tsunami of stones, gravel and dirt sped toward them. They were about to be sandwiched, caught literally between a rock and a hard place.

They all jumped, diving toward the ever-diminishing beacon of light, and the promise of relative safety outside.

Buffy hit the scorching, parched sand outside the cave entrance and rolled head over heels for several yards before coming to a stop. She could feel the tremors of the collapsing cave through the ground beneath her, but it was, at last, not lurching like a ship on high seas, and no rocks were pelting her body. She gasped for air, coughing and choking the dust and sand from her mouth and lungs, trying to catch her breath.

She wanted nothing more than to simply lie here for the rest of eternity. She was terrified, exhausted, and emotionally drained from everything that had transpired over the last … however long it was. She had no idea. It felt like days or even weeks now.

Her rest, however, was short-lived, when she heard Spike screaming in pure agony.

“Buffy, help!” William called frantically, just as she sat up to try and find them. “He’s burning!”

Buffy was on her feet in an instant and running back to the men, her weariness forgotten with another burst of adrenaline. Spike was, indeed, burning under the unforgiving light of his recharged soul. William, too, was beginning to blister and smolder, but Spike’s skin had already started to scorch and blacken.

William was trying to cover Spike with one of the velvet curtains from the parlor. It was helping a little, but Spike was still smoldering beneath the thick fabric. It flashed through Buffy’s mind that William must have gone back in after they’d had the door broken down to get it, knowing what would happen to Spike out here in the glaring purity of his restored soul.

The realization added a whole new set of questions for her about their relationship, but she had no time to ponder them now.

Buffy began to raise her wings to shield William and Spike, but pain shot through her like red-hot pokers, stopping her. She was rudely reminded of Spike crashing down atop her and the pain of fragile, bird-like bones breaking in her new appendages.

“NO!” she screamed, trying to get the wings to rise, to open, to do anything to protect Spike and William. They opened only slightly, and renewed pain shot through her, sending a volley of bright, red stars bursting across her vision and a gasp of agony from her lips.

“William! You have to open them! Pull them open!” she ordered him as she dropped down on hands and knees crossways over Spike’s midsection, her knees on one side of his drapery-wrapped body, her hands on the other.

William looked at her with wide eyes, then at her wings, which were twisted unnaturally, bones protruding from the blood-stained feathers at odd angles.

“They … they’re damaged!” he observed needlessly.

“Thus, the need for manual operation!” Buffy growled. “NOW! DO IT!”

William frowned in concentration and tried to ease one of the oddly heavy wings away from Buffy’s back. When she gasped in pain, he stopped, his heart pounding, terrified of hurting her.

“OPEN IT! FUCKING DO IT! NOW!” Buffy screamed at him as she watched Spike begin to smolder beneath her and the velvet shroud. How much longer could he survive this? Is it possible for a vampire to actually dust in the light of their own soul? Angel hadn’t, but then she wasn’t so sure about the purity and strength of Angel’s soul to start with.

William swallowed his fear and, using both hands, he jerked the one wing he’d been holding out straight with a violent yank. Buffy screamed in pain, her body arching and convulsing in agony as knives stabbed into her back like a hundred Bringers had just converged on her.

“Buffy!” he cried, letting go of the broken wing and letting the tip fall limply to the ground. It touched down above Spike’s head, shielding the vampire’s upper-body from the burning light.

“The … other … one,” she ground out through clenched teeth, tears of brutal agony streaming down her cheeks.

William grimaced, his own heart aching knowing how much he was hurting her, but moved to her other side and took hold of the tip of the wing there with both hands.

“On three!” he told her, and Buffy nodded, gritting her teeth and tensing her body for the pain.

“One … two….” William yanked the other wing open with a sound of popping joints and cracking bones, never reaching three.

Buffy screamed again, a desperate howl of tortured anguish, and then collapsed in the sand, sprawling limply across Spike. Every muscle, synapse and nerve in her body had been stretched well beyond its limit of endurance. There was nothing left for her to give.

William hurried around in front of her and ducked beneath the wide edge of one wing, sitting close to Spike’s still-smoldering legs in the shelter her feathers provided. His exposed skin was already covered in the same nasty, painful blisters that Buffy had healed when she’d first found him. He sighed in relief, the pain not exactly diminishing, but at least not expanding further now that he’d gotten out of the scorching intensity of innocent virtue.

Buffy was gulping air, gasping in pain, unable to even lift her head off the sand. Her body was slumped over the burned and unconscious vampire, who felt and smelled like nothing more than a pile of lifeless, burned flesh beneath her.

After a few moments, she found the energy to open one eye and glare at William. “You’re a … fucking … bastard,” she gasped out, before her eye drooped closed again and she lapsed into welcome unconsciousness.

“Yes,” he agreed, tears of remorse for causing her such pain staining his own cheeks as he huddled in her protective haven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: How will Buffy be able to get back to her own body and still protect Spike and William from the pain of the renewed soul?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the bomb and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond amazing! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	55. Crimes and Misdemeanors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy, Spike, and William have escaped the cave of doom, but now the pure soul-fire sun is threatening to immolate Spike and William, punishing them for their sins.

* * *

 

Buffy’s own moans of pain roused her some time later. She didn’t know how much time had passed, how long she’d been unconscious. She blinked her eyes open and immediately regretted it as her eyelids spread the grit around painfully beneath them, scratching her already inflamed eyeballs. Tears sprang to her eyes as she kept blinking, bringing a hand up to try and wipe the sand away. What she wouldn’t give for some water right now. But there was none. Not a drop to be found in this parched wasteland which had been burned clean with Spike’s restored soul.

She could feel Spike beneath her, still unmoving, and could make out William’s form huddled beneath her wing against Spike’s legs. It took her a few minutes before she could focus her eyes as her tears slowly washed the sand and grit from them.

She still hurt badly. Pain shot out from her damaged wings when she moved her body the slightest bit; even breathing was painful. She was afraid to even try to move her wings. How was she gonna get back to that mountain of bones where she’d come in so that she could get back home? She’d have to cross that swamp of blood and viscera on foot. The thought of it made bile rise in the back of her throat and she pushed the idea back as far from her consciousness as she could. She wasn’t at that bridge yet, she would burn it when she got there.

And then there was William and Spike. How would they ever survive here without shelter? Buffy turned her head and looked at the spot where the opening to the cavern had been. It was completely collapsed, filled in with rocks and sand, not even a small indentation was left in the mountain. Could they dig a new tunnel into the walls of the mountain around them? She looked around, but it looked like solid rock. Even if she could somehow gouge out a small enclave, she certainly couldn’t do that and protect Spike and William at the same time.

Buffy sighed heavily, and new tears sprang to her eyes, now from frustration and fear. How would her Spike survive this back in Sunnydale? Not only was his demon suffering and seemingly on the verge of dusting here, the part of his humanity, which had apparently remained with him ever since he was first turned, was also in agony.

How could he not go completely and utterly mad? She’d seen him in the throes of madness already, in utter despair – would it only get worse? The thought of losing him tore at Buffy’s heart, threatening to rip it from her chest right here on the sand. She’d lost him once and it felt like her world had collapsed on her, burying her alive. How could she sit helplessly and watch him go mad, or worse? How could she lose him again and not go mad herself?

Then an even more daunting and horrifying though surfaced. The First’s contention that she was nothing but a meaningless distraction came back to her. She certainly was feeling less than effective right now. Had The First been right? Had she let herself become too human, too emotional, too vulnerable? Was she about to not only lose Spike, but everyone she loved, to whatever plot The First had set in motion? All because she had let herself love again. All because she kept thinking that she deserved some happiness after all the heartache and pain? Had she failed the world, finally? Was this it? Was she about to lose everything?

“Fuck no,” she grunted out angrily. “I’m not losing anyone,” she stated emphatically into the silence of the empty mountain.

“I beg your pardon?” William asked groggily, uncurling slightly from his position next to Spike’s legs, but staying beneath the cover of her wing. His skin was still horribly blistered, although they had started to heal slightly, some of blisters shrinking, some simply popping open on his face and hands.

“Don’t beg. Help me think,” she demanded of him, conjuring her determination – from where, she had no idea. “You’re the smart one here. How do we get out of this mess? How do I keep you both safe, keep my Spike from losing what’s left of his marbles, and get back to my own body?”

William blinked and pushed up to sit cross-legged beneath her wing, lifting it slightly with the top of his head. Buffy winced as he moved her injured wing, biting back a curse of pain.

“Oh, dear. I do apologize,” William offered hastily, ducking back down a bit to take the pressure off the wing.

Buffy gasped again, clamping her eyes closed in pain and frustration, her stomach twisting into knots as the knives in her back tore through her. “JUST. STOP. MOVING,” she ground out, opening her eyes and glaring daggers at him.

“Indeed, I shall not move another inch,” he assured her as he froze in an awkward half-bent over position which required him to strain his neck to look at her.

Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “Just … just sit back up,” she told him. “You’re making my back ache looking at you.”

William’s brows raised in question, and several of the blisters on his face popped with the motion, but he slowly lifted back up straight, pressing gently against her wing with the top of his head as he raised up.

Buffy held her breath, tensing her body, fighting back the urge to strangle him. When he’d finally, _thankfully_ stopped moving again, she slowly released her breath and the rigidity of her body as the pain subsided back to unbearable.

“Is this too painful?” he asked with concern.

Buffy shook her head and opened her eyes finally, giving him a grimacing smile that was meant to reassure him, but fell well short of that aim. “Fine. I’m … fine.”

“I do not believe that to be the case,” William pointed out.

“That’s why you get the big bucks, William – astute observations like that,” she retorted a little more sharply than she meant to. “What I really need you to figure out is how I get home and keep you both from broiling at the same time.”

Buffy braced her hands beneath her shoulders to push up off Spike. Whatever they were going to do, she would need to be able to move. Waiting for her wings to heal was not going to be an option. Buffy felt a scream of pain start deep in her belly as she lifted up, shifting her wings into new, gut-wrenching positions, but she clamped her mouth shut, refusing to let it escape. She felt like her whole head would explode as she held the shriek in, but finally made it to her hands and knees with only a small squeak of the ear-shattering scream escaping her.

“Are you … still fine?” William asked, concerned.

“Peachy,” she grunted out, taking deep breaths to ease the agony. “You’re supposed to be thinking – not worrying about me.”

“Indeed,” he agreed dourly, frowning in concentration, trying to look around the area without moving her wing, for any respite from the burning sun, but there was none. Not even the evil cave of doom remained an option.

Having gained some modicum of control, Buffy sat back on her heels a bit, and reached a hand out towards William’s face to heal him. He pulled back, catching her wrist and stopping her. “I, also, am _peachy_ ,” he assured her. “Spike may need some assistance, however.”

Buffy bit her lip, but drew her hand back, nodding. She pulled back the heavy velvet drapery from Spike’s head and upper-body to reveal blackened, scorched skin beneath. “God, Spike…” she murmured, reaching out to touch his face.

“Maybe we could …” Buffy began, still healing Spike and not daring to look at William. She paused, grimacing with just the thought of it, but finished, “…cut off my wings and you could use them for a shelter.”

“Cut off your –!!??” William began, his blue eyes wide with horror, unable to even finish saying the words. “I … do not believe I … no, I … I could not conceive of such an atrocity.”

Buffy sighed and looked over at him. He was shaking his head adamantly, looking as frightened and horrified as he’d looked when he watched his own mother dust. “Okay … it was just an idea,” Buffy sighed, turning back to the scorched vampire laying on the sand. She was at once relieved and disappointed. She couldn’t fathom leaving them unprotected, but at the same time she wasn’t sure she could remain conscious during a wing-ectomy.

As she worked on healing Spike, William tried to think of a solution – any solution other than Buffy’s! – chewing his bottom lip in concentration. He considered and dismissed a few ideas, finally suggesting, “We could, perhaps, bury ourselves beneath the sand.” He picked up a handful of the white, powder-dry grit and let it shift between his fingers to demonstrate.

Buffy’s brows drew together as she thought, her hand still moving slowly over Spike’s burned skin. “Could you stay that way for a long time? Cos I don’t know how long that new soul will stay all spic-and-span like this.”

William rolled his eyes. “Knowing Spike as I do, I rather think not too long,” he observed. “I do not believe that being beneath the sand would harm us. Unlike the cavern, it is part of us, and we are part of it.

“Perhaps I should dig, and you should simply …” William began, but Buffy cut him off with a glare.

“I can dig,” she grunted out between clenched teeth, proving her point by flinging a handful of sand behind her, like a dog digging for a bone. She’d used her injured arm to do it and it hurt like hell, but she wasn’t about to let William know that.

William nodded tentatively. “Of course, I was merely suggesting that—”

“Shut up and dig,” Buffy implored him as she finished healing all of Spike’s torso that she could reach without flipping him over, and began running her hand down his strong arms. “I’ll help you when I’m done here.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

The digging was tedious. The sand was powder dry and fine. It seemed like every two or three handfuls that they dug out of the slowly emerging pit was replaced by one or two slipping back into it. But they persevered, Buffy doing her best to dig while also keeping Spike and William shielded with her damaged wings. They still poked daggers into her back with each movement, but she had begun to get numb to the pain. It simply became part of her reality, background noise, like the sound of traffic from a nearby highway.

Despite Buffy healing as much of Spike as she could without flipping him over, which would’ve meant William going out from under her wings to manhandle the vampire into a different position, he had not woken up. Buffy had covered him back up with the velvet drapery and she and William had been doing the digging.

After working in silence for a while, Buffy observed, “You went back in to get this curtain … when the place was collapsing.”

Since it didn’t appear to be a question, William didn’t respond or comment.

After no reply from him, she asked, “Why?”

William kept his head down, flinging sand out behind him in deliberate, rapid movements of his hands, and didn’t answer her for a time. Finally, he looked up at her and said, “Spike is correct when he says I was … I am … a ‘poofter’, as he so eloquently puts it.

“In life, my nature was not particularly … forceful. I believed that differences could be solved with words, with reason and understanding, not swords. The one time that words and reason failed, and I took it upon myself to stand up to a tyrant, ended quite dreadfully. The event distressed me horribly. Afterwards, I became even more timid, more … of a coward, Spike would say.”

Buffy stopped digging and looked at him with concern. “And…?” she prompted when he didn’t continue.

“And … the demon changed that,” William explained with a small shrug. “I cannot agree with what he has done – the atrocities, the death and destruction – but I do value the power, the boldness, the courage that he has provided.

“In short, despite his … bothersome gibes and loutish opinions, I do not wish to return to the shadows of mediocrity,” William admitted. “You have tempered his immorality, smoothed the harshest edges, softened his heart, lessened his bloodlust. The things that I had struggled to do for decades, you have done in just a handful of years.”

Buffy blinked tears back, swallowing them before they could fall, a bit overwhelmed by the certainty of his declaration. “Was it me, or the chip?”

William met her eyes, his expression intense and earnest. “You, Buffy. It was you. Did you not hear the speech you gave your friends? It was quite accurate. From the moment he saw you it began. The cage I’d been relegated to opened, he began to listen again – not always, just about small things at first, but more as time went on.

“It began when he saw you dancing with your friends – when he first set eyes on you, before he’d even spoken a word or heard your voice. Something simply … shattered inside him, the demonic shackles that held me down.”

“I wasn’t really sure,” she admitted in a low whisper, looking down at the shrouded form of the still unconscious vampire next to them. “He never said.”

“I doubt he even knows,” William observed. “I could’ve told you, but he rarely lets me actually speak with you. And, generally when he does, it is during some dire emotional situation that he is ill-prepared to deal with.”

Buffy’s brows knitted together. “How does that work, exactly? Don’t you both know what the other knows? You can hear each other’s thoughts? Aren’t you both Spike … I mean _my Spike,_ back in Sunnydale?”

William shrugged and went back to digging. “We are both _your Spike_ , certainly. And we can share information, and do so on many topics – sometimes to my utter dismay. But some areas are more my domain, others need his particular talents. Those matters are harder to … share. It’s complicated.”

Buffy sighed and began digging again, too. “Of course it is,” she muttered, resigned, flinging sand back behind her. “Nothing’s ever simple, black and white, yes or no – I don’t even know why those words exist, they’re useless.”

William snorted an understanding laugh. “I can assure you of one thing that is quite clear,” he told her, stopping his digging and looking up at her.

“The sky is blue?” Buffy wondered.

“Actually, no, the sky is not blue. It only appears blue to our eyes because of the shorter wavelength of the light—” William began to explain.

Buffy held her hand up to stop him. “You’re the kind of person who likes to figure out illusions – like when they cut girls in half in those boxes – and tell everyone how they’re done, aren’t you?” she asked him, crinkling her nose up derisively. 

William opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again, shrugging. “Scientia potentia est,” William replied finally. “Knowledge is power.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s better to just enjoy the pretty blue sky and not overanalyze it,” she contended.

William tilted his head in a nod of acceptance, acquiescing the point. “What cannot be disputed, or perhaps explained fully, is love,” he continued, catching her gaze and holding it with his captivating blue eyes. “And what is certain, and abundantly clear, is that all parts of _your Spike_ love you fervently – the human and the demon.”

Buffy bit her bottom lip and nodded, still holding his gaze. “I love all parts of him, too,” she told William softly. “The human and the demon – fervently.”

William pursed his lips together, his eyes falling closed to hold back the tears that suddenly sprang up. “Thank you for that.”

Buffy nodded. “It’s only the truth, William. I hope you know that. It’s not just words.”

William gave her a shy smile and went back to digging in earnest.

“Can I ask you something else?” Buffy queried, also getting back to the labor of moving the sand.

“Certainly. I’m an open book,” William agreed.

“Why do you think you’re getting burned so badly?” she wondered, looking up at the blazing light above them.

William cleared his throat uncomfortably, keeping his eyes on his work, flinging sand back behind him. “What Spike contracted and fought so hard to be restored to us is the soul of a babe, without sin, without fault – it is a soul in its purest form. I, of course, am from a different part of our life. I am not without sin, not without guilt.”

Buffy nodded, still digging. “And what sin are you being punished for?”

“I’m certain there are many,” William answered ambiguously. 

“Hmmmm…” Buffy murmured noncommittally. “Kind of an evasive book, I guess,” she observed quietly, but didn’t press further.

“May I ask you a question?” William posited after a moment.

“I’m an open book, just like you,” she replied, giving him an ironic look.

“Indeed,” he replied somewhat uneasily. “Well, I was just wondering why it is that you do not burn here. No offense intended, but, I do not believe you to be as pure as … errr …”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’m as pure as the driven, yellow snow, William. It’s just that this isn’t my soul, it’s yours. It isn’t here to judge me. It probably doesn’t even know I’m here,” Buffy explained, shrugging.

William nodded and grew quiet, both of them going back to their work. After several minutes, William blurted out, “I killed my father,” in a tone so matter-of-fact that Buffy wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

“You … what?” she asked, looking up at him.

William cleared his throat uncomfortably, but didn’t meet her eyes, instead he kept digging, keeping his gaze down. “My father was a lout, a drunkard, and a libertine. He beat my mother nearly every day, any small indiscretion, such as not enough honey on his porridge or using too much wood in the fire, would inflame him. He was … brutal, particularly if he was inebriated. Which was frequent.”

“Oh, William, I’m so sorry,” Buffy said, suddenly feeling guilty for even asking him. “Couldn’t the police help?”

William snorted derisively. “It was a different time – I doubt you could even comprehend it. Women were treated as … property – with less value than livestock. There was a fairly common saying, ‘A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more they are beaten, the better they’ll be.’

“The police were also men with wives at home. They had no interest in stepping in between a man who was simply correcting his errant wife, teaching her proper behavior. It was, after all, his prerogative, his duty even.”

“Correcting,” Buffy repeated, frowning. “Correcting with his fists, you mean?”

“Fists, boots, pokers, kitchen knives, cookware, whatever was at hand. More than once he put her out to sleep in the alley in nothing but her shift in the middle of winter. He said that she was ungrateful and disrespectful, and it was his way to teach her to appreciate him and all that he provided. He forbade me to allow her back in or provide any quilts or other comfort. He … he was the devil incarnate in my eyes,” William admitted, still not looking at her, but no longer digging.

“What happened?” Buffy asked softly.

William took a deep breath and let it out slowly before answering. “When I was fourteen, he put her out on a frightfully cold night after beating her nearly senseless. I … I brought her back in after he’d gone to sleep. He discovered my disobedience and made to correct my behavior, to beat me, as was his way.” William shook his head, remembering, and grew silent for several moments.

Finally, he looked up at Buffy. “He had some dueling swords that hung on the wall in the parlor. I don’t believe he’d ever actually used them, but they were there and … and when he struck me, I fell into them, knocking them down. I do not recall how it happened … I only remember him lying on the floor, the sword driven through his heart, and blood on my hands.”

“Oh, God, William,” Buffy breathed, reaching a hand out toward him.

He shook his head and drew back, not able to bear her touch in this moment. “I am not proud of it, but I would do it again,” he admitted.

“Your mother was there when it happened?” Buffy asked.

William nodded. “She helped me dispose of him. We made it seem like he’d fallen victim to street violence. The constable pulled his body from the river the next day. We never spoke of it again. We never spoke of _him_ again. It was like he never existed. From that moment on, it was just the two of us.”

“Oh, William,” Buffy cried. “You must’ve felt so alone and lost. To have that burden and not even be able to talk to anyone about it.”

He nodded again and went back to digging. “So, you see, I am not without sin.”

“You were defending yourself, defending your mother,” Buffy argued. “There’s no sin in that.”

William stuck his hand out from under the protection of her wings and his skin began to blister and burn almost immediately. “I believe my soul disagrees.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 “Are you certain you’re fit enough to cover us alone?” William asked after they’d gotten the still unconscious Spike lowered into the trench. It was about three or four feet deep, all they could really manage in the dry sand with only their hands as tools.

“Yes, I’m fine. I’ll get you both covered up. Now get in,” Buffy insisted.

“But how will you get back to the mountain?” William continued, looking worried.

“I’ll figure it out,” Buffy assured him, although she honestly had no idea how she’d even cross the blood swamp, let alone find the stupid mountain on foot without her little lark guide. “Trust me, okay?”

William nodded gravely, clearly still worried.

Buffy reached out a hand and touched to his cheek, making him lift his blue eyes up to meet her gaze. “I’ll be okay,” she assured him softly.

“In case I never get another opportunity to say it to you again,” William breathed, his voice deep with emotion. “I love you. You are everything to me.”

“I love you, too, William,” Buffy whispered, leaning in to kiss him tenderly. It was a long, languorous kiss – unhurried and dreamy – meant to last a lifetime if need be.

Just as the kiss came to its natural end and their lips parted, William pulled her back in. His hands tangled in her hair, and he captured her lips again, smothering them in a passionate, desperate kiss. Buffy’s lips parted for him, inviting his tongue to tangle with hers, to taste, to explore the depths of her as she explored him. Her hands roamed over his shoulders, down his body, caressing him through his layers of clothing as his fingers tightened in her golden halo of silk.

When her hand slipped beneath the waistband of his trousers and closed around his throbbing shaft, he released the kiss. His eyes closed, as he moaned in pleasure. He pressed into her palm, his hips lifting up to meet her, stroke for stroke, getting lost in the rapture of her touch. 

“William … I want you,” she murmured, her voice pouring over him like sweet, warm honey as she pumped up and down on his yearning, eager cock.

She pulled her hand out and began to fumble with the fly on his trousers, trying to figure out how to open them. Before she could figure out the laces, William came back from his tour of heaven. He grasped her hand, stilling it, and met her confused gaze with his resolute one.

“I want you so desperately, Buffy. The words do not exist which would allow me to express the depth of my desire for you. But you deserve satin and lace and soft feathers to lie in, not … not this. I am not a lout; I will not take you like one. I will not see your body lying in the dirt. I love you, and I would lay with you in candlelight atop a bed of roses or not at all.”

Buffy took a deep breath and blinked back her emotions as she nodded.  “I promise you, William. We’ll be together one day … with satin and lace, candles and roses. I’ll show you my love … my heart, and give you my body.”

William lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips, one by one, before releasing her. He climbed down into the trench alongside the vampire without another word, closing his eyes against the whirling storm of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.

Buffy took a deep breath and swallowed her own feelings before shaking out the large velvet drapery and letting it fall gently over both halves of the man she loved. Buffy clenched her jaw, trying to stifle the worry and fear she was feeling about leaving them like this, and began to cover them over with the piles of sand around the hole. She did her best to keep her wings over them as a shield while she worked, but it was nearly impossible to do. As smoke began to rise from the fabric where the bright light hit them, she worked faster, moving at a furious pace, to get them covered and safe.

Finally, sand was mounded up over them even higher than the surrounding ground, and she sat back on her heels to rest. Her injured arm throbbed fiercely, and she clutched it to her chest with the other, trying to get it to stop. Her damaged wings still stabbed icicles into her back when she moved a certain way, but the ongoing pain of them had become something she could bear and largely ignore.

She was exhausted, and honestly wished she could’ve crawled into the trench with William and Spike and just rested … forever, if necessary. But she couldn’t. People were counting on her. The world was counting on her. God, she was so tired of the world counting on her that she could scream. But she didn’t have the energy.

Buffy pushed herself up to her feet and sighed, looking around, trying to figure out how she was ever going to find her way out of here and back to her own body. As she was considering her limited options, smoke began rising from the sand in front of her, from the trench, from William and Spike.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she screamed, falling back to her knees atop the mound of sand to shield it from the burning soul-fire.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” she shrieked again, throwing her head back like a wolf howling at the bright unforgiving light above her.

Absolute fury engulfed her in that moment, igniting like a flash of lightning.  All they’d been through, all they’d suffered, all they’d overcome, and they were still burning!

“IT’S NOT FAIR!” she screamed at the bright sun that blazed down on her, getting back up to her feet to fling her furious words at it.

“STOP! SPIKE’S CHANGED! WILLIAM’S A GOOD MAN! THIS ISN’T FAIR!” she railed against it, raising her fists in the air as if she could physically pummel the shining light of the pure soul that judged them without mercy.

Without her consciously deciding to do so, Buffy’s wings began to move, to flap, to lift her from the burning ground, up into the air. She could feel the jolts of agonizing pain shooting through her as broken bones shifted and ground together, but she had no thought to spare for it any longer. She was already consumed with fury, with desperate fear, with righteous indignation – pain could simply wait its turn.

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” she screamed as she rose up out of the hollow mountain, heading straight for the bright light in the center of the dark sky.

The closer she got to it, the hotter it became, she smelled her hair singe, and then the tips of her feathers began to burn, but she didn’t stop, if anything she became more determined. Her wings flapped wildly, lifting her ever higher, straight into the heart of judgement, of guilt, of regret.

Buffy closed her eyes against the blinding light, feeling her skin begin to burn, to blister, but she didn’t stop, she didn’t even slow down. As her clothes and wings burst into flames, she screamed in agony, but continued forward with a tenacity only a Slayer set on saving the ones she loved could conjure.

Buffy hit something so searing hot she was sure it was the actual surface of the sun. She felt herself come to an abrupt halt and her wings whipped forward in an arc of pain unlike anything she’d ever felt before, encircling the sphere of brilliant, pure soul-fire. In the next moment, the world exploded with a thunderous, blistering detonation of intense light and deafening sound that stunned her senses.

Buffy was hurtled back out of the sky and down toward the ground at an alarming speed. She felt herself falling, falling, falling – it felt like it would never end. It was actually quite peaceful. She could hear the sound of Spike’s rich, rumbling laughter, deep and joyful and just the slightest bit wicked. It was a sumptuous sound she wanted to roll around in naked, lose herself in, drown in. She could feel his strong arms around her, holding her close to his body, protective and loving. She could see his eyes, so blue, so filled with love, with adoration, and with just a touch of roguish humor.

Spike filled her senses as she fell, an angel now with no wings. She floated in the depths of his love, surrounded by every sense of him, by his very essence. Everything else simply melted away, and she sighed in complete and utter peace, lost in the man she loved, falling through the warm embrace of his love and devotion.

And then she hit the ground, and everything shattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH NO! NOW WHAT??! 
> 
> Information about spouse abuse in the 1800s: http://www.historyofwomen.org/wifebeating.html
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the bomb and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond amazing! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	56. Domo Arigato

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What will be the fallout from Buffy’s angry sacrifice within Spike’s soul?

* * *

 

“Buffy!”

The muffled cry seemed to come from very far away, the sound of it somehow distorted, misshapen and incomprehensible. Buffy tried to think what the sound was, what it meant, but it was just beyond her ability to grasp, just out of reach. It twisted through her mind like a snake meandering through the grass, sinuous and evasive.

“BUFFY! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

The snake drew back and struck, making Buffy jerk back from the danger. Pain shot through her from the ends of her hair to the tips of her toenails. There was not one molecule in her body that didn’t radiate agony like shards of frozen glass exploding from within.

She moaned in pain, but even that hurt and sounded muffled to her own ears, like her throat was full of cotton, or maybe it was her brain.

“Buffy!”

Buffy felt something move atop her, heavy and damp. She wondered vaguely if she should open her eyes to see what it was, but couldn’t manage to concentrate long enough to perform the act.

“Buffy! Can you move!? We have to go!”

Buffy shook her head ever so slightly. Pain exploded like fireworks behind her eyelids and burned down her body like a fire-breathing dragon had just sneezed on her.

_No, I can not move._ I can _not go. I do not like Sam, I am. I will not cook green eggs and ham. Sam could starve, by damn. And keep those grubby hands off my man._

Buffy heard scraping, scratching – like a dog digging for a bone – and felt more movement above her, weight moving off her, dampness seeping into her clothes. Where was the snake?

_You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose._

Buffy felt something cold swipe across her face and freezing air enter her broken lungs. She tried her eyes again, blinking away whatever was holding them closed. Snowflakes fell from her lashes, slipping down her cheeks, melting into tears as they flowed into her ears and then down, dripping into the cold abyss beneath her.

“Oh, God, Buffy! Please, we have to go!” Willow beseeched her, clearing the thick layer of snow away from the Slayer’s face and working furiously down Buffy’s body, swiping it away frantically with her freezing hands.

_You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights._

“Buffy, can you hear me?!” the red witch cried as she started tugging at Buffy’s arm, trying to pull her from the thick snowdrift, even as heavy flurries of white crystals continued to fall from the sky.

Pain shot through the Slayer when Willow yanked on her arm and Buffy screamed. Or, she thought she did. There was no sound. There was only pain.

_If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good._

“Buffy, you have to wake up! You have to want to get back! I can’t make you,” Willow pled with her, shoveling more of the snow off her friend’s legs with her bare, reddened, trembling hands.

“If you don’t go now, you’re gonna die! Like _dead_ death of the deadly variety! I won’t be able to get you out of here!” the witch urged her as she began tugging on both of Buffy’s arms to get the Slayer to a sitting position in the deep snow.

Willow knelt in front of her friend, frantic and scared, and shook Buffy’s shoulders violently. “FOCUS! BUFFY! Look at me!”

Buffy blinked again, her lids moving in slow motion, her eyes focusing sluggishly on the woman in front of her.

_From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere._

“Good! That’s good!” Willow encouraged her. “Now, I need you to say, ‘nihil domo iucundius’ with me.”

Buffy blinked again, a languorous movement that seemed to take ages to accomplish and nearly all her strength. “Will?”

“Yeah, Buffy, it’s me. Please try to concentrate! We need to get you home! You’re dying … you’ve been gone too long, you have to go back now. Say, ‘nihil domo iucundius’!”

“William,” Buffy muttered, closing her eyes in another slow-motion blink, before lethargically opening them again.

_Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up, if only you try!_

Willow looked around the snow-covered landscape, but there was nothing but a thick blanket of white under a softly glowing, gauzy moon above. “I don’t know where he is, Buffy, but that’s not important now! If you don’t get back, _you are going to die_.”

Willow shook Buffy again by the shoulders, making the Slayer’s head loll back and forth like a rag doll, and more shards of sharp pain rocket through her.

“Good… die is of the good,” Buffy mumbled, letting her eyes fall closed again, the strength needed to keep them open becoming too much for her.

_With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street._

“NO! No, not of the good!” Willow argued. “Dawn needs you! A-And Spike … remember him? Remember why you came here? If you die, what will happen to him? He’ll go all _grr-argh_ again and start breaking things … expensive things …humany-things! Even me-things and Tara-things!”

“Hurts,” Buffy groaned, still not opening her eyes.

“It won’t hurt like this if we can just get you home! Buffy, _please_!” the witch begged. “Just say the words ‘nihil domo iucundius’. Come on, with me – nihil,” Willow prompted.

_I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see. Now my troubles are going to have trouble with me._

“Nihil,” Buffy parroted dazedly.

“Domo,” Willow continued.

“Domo …” Buffy repeated, then added, “Arigato, Mr. Roboto.”

“No! No Mr. Roboto! There is no Roboto! Just domo! Now, say it again! Nihil domo…”

Buffy repeated the words, slurring them slightly.

“Iucundius,” Willow prompted.

“Iuc ...un ...dius,” Buffy stammered, her body collapsing in upon itself like watery Jell-O. The pain, which was bursting from every cell in her body, ganged up and hit her in the head like a sledgehammer, overwhelming her completely.

Buffy’s mind blacked out and she floated in the grateful feeling of subsiding pain.

_Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one_ _alive who is youer than you._

In the next moment, vivid colors swirled in her vision, bright and glimmering behind her closed lids. She felt herself falling again, peaceful and light as a feather. A deep sigh escaped her, sweet relief washing over her. Dead. Thank goodness. She was dead. Finally.

_You’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way!_

And then she was gasping for air, her lungs painfully empty, as if she’d been underwater much too long. Her lungs, her whole body, was desperate for oxygen, her heart was struggling, beating much too slowly.

“Buffy!” another voice exclaimed, and she felt warm, comforting arms encircling her shoulders, a sharp contrast to the cold she’d been in a few moments before.

The Slayer blinked her eyes open and looked up into Tara’s worried face, still feeling disoriented and oddly chilled. She realized then she was laying on the cool, hard basement floor, her upper-body resting on the witch’s legs, being held in Tara’s gentle embrace.

_If things start happening, don’t worry, don’t stew, just go right along and you’ll start happening too._

“Tara…” she mumbled, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind and get her bearings.

“It’s okay, Buffy … it’ll be okay,” the white witch assured the Slayer. “Don’t try to move yet.”

“What … what happened?” Buffy asked, ignoring Tara’s advice and trying to sit up.

“You were gone too long, your body started to shut down,” Tara told her, helping Buffy to sit up, since, obviously telling her not to wasn’t working.

Buffy struggled up into a cross-legged seat on the floor and dropped her aching head into her hands. She was getting very tired of her head aching; there didn’t seem to be enough aspirin in the whole world to get it to stop.

_Step with care and great tact, and remember that life’s a great balancing act._

Then Buffy noticed a hastily-wrapped, blood-stained bandage on her right forearm. She unwrapped it to reveal torn and ravaged flesh beneath. Suddenly focus returned and she looked up sharply, scanning the basement to find Spike.

“Did he hurt anyone else?!” she asked, seeing him once again shackled to the wall.

The cot that had been there was now several feet away and knocked over on its side. Spike sat beneath the shackles on the floor, looking like a ragdoll, his back against the wall. He was sitting on his butt with his legs spread out wide in front of him, his head was bent forward, loose on his neck, his arms hanging limply from the chains.

“N-no,” Tara assured her. “Just you.”

“What’s wrong with him? He’s not dying too, is he?” Buffy asked, suddenly panicked, worry pricking her senses back to sharpness.

“No … he’s asleep. We … I … it was the only way to control him. I hit him with a sleep spell … Willow might’ve hit him with something harder.”

Buffy looked around the basement then. Shelves were turned over, the salt circle they’d been in was scattered all over the floor, the candles were turned over, paint cans and other miscellany was strewn everywhere. Willow was sitting in the center of the pentagram where Buffy and Spike had started out, her own head resting heavily in her hands. The witch was panting for air like she’d just run a marathon, her body trembling with fatigue and fright.

“Is Willow okay?” Buffy asked, making a move toward her friend.

“She’s just exhausted,” Tara assured her, putting a hand on Buffy’s shoulder to stop her. “She needs to just be still for a few minutes. Don’t touch her. She had a really hard time finding you. She’s been trying for a while.”

Buffy nodded, vaguely remembering Willow digging her out of her grave. Or … out of something. What was it? She shook her head, unsure.

“I guess there was a pretty good fight here, huh?” she asked the witch finally, giving up on trying to remember what happened after she’d done her Icarus impersonation.

“Ummm, well, if you mean that it was terrifying, bloody, and violent, then … yes.”

Buffy rubbed her forehead, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath of relief. “I have to go back,” she told Tara.

Tara shook her head, her eyes wide with worry. “N-no, you can’t. Buffy, it’s too dangerous. A-And Willow is spent. She can’t send you back again. Not now. Not for a while.”

Buffy clenched her fists in frustration, making her injured arm shoot pain up and down its length. “Damn it!” she snarled under her breath. “They’re burning.”

“Who’s burning?” Tara asked, looking at her with concern.

“William and Spike … the original human essence and the demon,” she clarified. “The new soul was pure, like a newborn baby, and it was burning them, judging them … torturing them. It was like a big sun, scorching them.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Willow said, her voice barely audible. The red witched looked up, her breathing finally under control. She pushed tiredly up to her feet and walked the few steps over to where Buffy and Tara sat, plopping back down in front of them.

“It was snowing, Buffy. I dug you out of the snow. There was no sun, just a bright moon … like a harvest moon,” Willow told her. “I didn’t see anyone else. It took me forever to find you. Were they under the snow, too?”

“Snowing?” Buffy asked, closing her eyes and trying to remember. Cold … she remembered being cold and damp … and a heavy weight atop her. “It wasn’t hot? There was no bright light? Like a huge sun shining down?”

Willow shook her head. “No … it was cold, there was snow everywhere, like … two or three feet deep. There was a light in the sky, but it wasn’t like a sun, more like a bright, full moon is all. It would’ve been pretty – all Currier and Ives-y – if you hadn’t been dying … _again_!”

Buffy closed her eyes and collapsed backwards, laying back onto the floor, as tears of relief sprung to her eyes. She covered her face with her hands as a sob shook her body. The tightness in her chest lifted. The worry, the agony, the fear, the pain … it had been worth it. They weren’t burning. There was nothing but serene moonlight there now.  Everything was covered in a layer of snow, the bones, the blood, all shrouded, the guilt and pain of them softened.  The burning soul had been tempered, assuaged, perhaps even appeased by her sacrifice on behalf of the man and the demon it held in judgement.  

Her tears of relief came harder, shaking her body again and again with the sweet release. They were okay. Everything would be fine now.

“Buffy?” Willow asked tentatively. “Are you okay?”

Buffy nodded and muttered something vaguely affirmative through her hands, which still covered her face.

“Is Spike … okay? Did you figure out what was making him attack you?” Willow asked.

Buffy nodded again, and began wiping her face with her fingers, taking deep, hiccupping breaths to try to slow her tears. “The First,” she said at last. “It’s The First Evil.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it?” Tara asked.

“Pretty much the worst,” Buffy agreed, still laying on her back, looking up at the basement ceiling. She suddenly felt utterly exhausted, all the way to her bones.

“Do you think you … fixed it?” Willow wondered.

“Yeah, I think that much got fixed, at least,” Buffy assured her.

“Well, to balance that out, we have some bad news,” Willow told her. “Giles couldn’t get in touch with his Watcher friends, and the Council wouldn’t talk to him on the phone. He left for England a few hours ago.”

Buffy nodded, too tired to do more, and a yawn came on her suddenly, stretching her jaw wide to the point of being painful.

“How long was I … gone?” she asked the witches drowsily when it passed.

“Like … twenty-six hours,” Tara told her, looking at her watch.

Buffy groaned. “No wonder I have to pee so bad.”

The Slayer pushed back up to sitting, rubbing her face vigorously to try and wake up. “Is Spike okay?” she asked, as she began to rise.

“He’s asleep … and possibly severely concussed. His skull may be cracked a little,” Willow told her friend, also rising to her feet a little shakily. “It was the only way we could get him off you.”

“Did I stab him? Did he have a wound in his stomach? Bleeding?” Buffy wondered, taking a few steps over nearer him to look more closely.

“No, nothing like that,” Tara answered, also standing and taking Willow’s arm to help steady her.

“That’s so unfair,” Buffy complained, pouting, as she looked at her injured arm, shaking her head.

“D-did you hurt him in … in the … where you were?” Tara wondered.

“I beat his ass,” Buffy declared, heading for the stairs and the bathroom.

“Well, we just beat his head. So, his ass is all yours – ready for beating – or, you know, whatever you like to do with it,” Willow teased, as she and Tara followed Buffy.

Buffy laughed lightly, starting up the stairs. “Exactly as it should be.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy padded down the stairs on bare feet a short time later after cleaning up a bit, re-bandaging her arm, taking a bottle of aspirin, and changing into some loose, comfortable clothes: an old tank top and loose PJ bottoms.

Spike looked like he had not moved at all, still asleep, sitting like a Raggedy Ann doll, assuming Raggedy Ann was into shackles. Buffy didn’t know how long the sleep spell would last. It might not even be the spell keeping him out, but the cracked noggin he had from Willow hitting him over the head with a baseball bat.

Buffy wished she could heal him like she’d done his … what? His spirt? His subconscious? His essence? She sighed. Well, she couldn’t, so she’d just have to wait. He’d wake up when he woke up. But in the meantime, she’d make him comfortable.

Buffy righted the cot, replacing the thin mattress and blankets on it, and moved it back over against the wall, near where he sat. She grabbed the keys to the shackles and released his hands, lowering his arms down slowly rather than letting them fall. She then lifted him up gently and laid him down on the narrow cot, covering him up with the blanket. He shifted then, turning onto his side facing her and adjusting the pillow under his head, but didn’t seem to actually wake.

Buffy lifted the edge of the blanket and slipped in next to him, lying on her side, as well, pressing her back against his front in the narrow space. She took the hand of his top arm in hers and drew it over her, twining her fingers with his, and holding it against her stomach. Then she sighed deeply, exhaustion overcoming her, and let her eyes fall closed.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Are you a dream?” came a low, sleepy voice from behind her some hours later.

Buffy woke slowly, not sure she’d actually heard it or if she had imagined it or dreamed it. She turned her head back to look at her companion.

Though it was clearly Spike in the cot with her, his eyes were soft with just the slightest difference in expression than he normally wore.

“William?” she asked, meeting his blue eyes directly.

He smiled softly and pulled his hand from her grasp, lifting it to touch her face. “My dreams of you have never been so warm,” he whispered, drawing a finger along her jawline gently.

“Are you okay?” Buffy asked, turning over carefully in the small space so she could face him.

“Indeed, I am well. And Spike is healing, _regrettably_ ,” he sighed.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Don’t even try to pull that with me. You can bicker with him all you want, but I know better, don’t I?”

William’s mouth hardened into a tight line. “Just because I do not wish him gone, does not mean I enjoy his ill-mannered and uncouth company,” he assured her.

“Yeah, okay, if you say so,” Buffy agreed wryly, giving him a knowing smile.

William lifted his hand to run his fingers through her soft hair, ignoring her mockery and asked, “What did you do? It no longer burns.”

Buffy took a deep breath and released it slowly, complete relief again washing through her. It hadn’t been some weird hallucination, after all.  “I just put a dimmer switch on that shiny soul Spike installed.”

“And how, pray tell, does one accomplish that?” he asked, his blue eyes roaming over her face as if memorizing every detail.

“Well, if one is an angel Slayer … errr … not that I slay angels – cos, obviously, not my job! And who would want to slay angels? … Except for Angel – with a capital ‘A’, as in Angelus, who is really not an angel at all, of course, especially when he loses his soul, which happens much too frequently, if you ask me.

“I just mean an angel, who is a Slayer … So, you know, the angel Slayer thing …”

“Buffy?” William interrupted her.

“Huh?”

“I take your meaning. So, how does one who is an angel and a Slayer dim the soul?” he asked, refocusing her.

“Oh, well, one goes up there and kicks its ass, of course. Did you think I’d use diplomacy and logic to reason with it? Maybe ask it, ‘pretty please?’”

William laughed lightly, his eyes dancing with amusement, and shook his head. “No, my love. I would never believe that of you.

“May I … kiss you, my dear angelic Slayer?”

Buffy smiled and laid her hand against his cheek. “I thought you’d never ask,” she breathed, closing the short distance between them.

Their mouths met gently, tentatively, with shy nips and sucks of lips, teasing and tender. And then their tongues darted out, touching, retreating, tasting, tempting. After a relative eternity of tender exploration, their mouths joined in a deep, passionate kiss, their bodies pressing together, yearning and hungry. Tongues danced, enticing and seductive, and hands roamed passionately over aching bodies, slipping beneath fabric, finding skin.

Buffy, pulled back, gasping and breathless. She grabbed William’s hand, pulling it away from where he cupped her ass.

“Not here …” she breathed, tossing the blanket off and getting to her feet. William followed her, his hand still in hers, standing up and trailing behind her as she headed for the stairs.   

“Buffy! Spike!” Dawn cried when they emerged from the basement into the kitchen. “You’re up! I was gonna order pizza for dinner. I didn’t think you’d mind, right?”

“That’s fine, Dawn, get some hot wings too, okay?” Buffy answered, not slowing down, tugging William along behind her. “We’re just gonna … take another nap. Upstairs. In my room. Possibly for a while.”

“Oh, right … _nap_. Cos you guys are all about _naps_ ,” Dawn joked, rolling her eyes. “You can always heat it back up in the microwave after your long, noisy _nap_.”

“Are you implying that your sister is being untruthful?” William asked the girl, his brows knit together in disapproval. “That’s extremely disrespectful.”

Dawn blinked, her own forehead wrinkling but with confusion. “Well, duh! And why are you talking like that?”

“I … well …” William stammered.

“He’s just tired,” Buffy cut in. “He reverts to … Giles-talk when he’s really tired,” she explained. “We’ll see you later. After our _nap_.”

Buffy tugged William out of the kitchen, through the dining room, and into the living room, where Tara and Willow were relaxing on the couch.

“Spike! You’re up! I’m _so_ sorry, you know, for the whole bat thing. Are you okay?” Willow asked, sitting up from where she had been lounging against her girlfriend.

“Yes, thank you for asking. Was it you who struck me on the head?” William asked, touching a hand to a lump on the back of his skull.

“Ummm, yeah …” Willow admitted, frowning. She looked at Buffy and asked, “Did I jar something loose? Why is he talking like that?”

“Why is everyone so intrigued with my manner of speech?” William wondered. “Just because I don’t effect that ridiculous cockney accent that Spike—"

“I’m sure it will pass,” Buffy interrupted hastily, tugging William up the stairs. “We’re just gonna get another little nap in before dinner.”

Buffy stopped about halfway up the stairs and looked back down at the witches. “That noise-cancelling mojo is still working, right?”

Tara gave Buffy a knowing smile and nodded. “Yes. Your _nap_ won’t be disturbed, don’t worry.”

“Oh, good,” Buffy nodded. “We wouldn’t want our nap-time to be un-nappy with all the moaning and screaming going on down here.”

Willow and Tara both laughed as Buffy turned and continued dragging William up the stairs and out of sight.

“I guess they have a different way of napping than we do,” Willow observed, smirking.

Tara laughed. “I don’t know, we’ve been known to have some … _energetic_ naps. I could even go for a nap now, myself, come to think of it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Willow purred, her eyes glittering with mischief. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Tara assured her, biting her lower lip coyly.

“Dawnie! We’re gonna take a nap before dinner,” Willow called into the kitchen as she stood up. “Go ahead and eat. Don’t wait for us.”

Dawn walked into the empty living room just as Willow and Tara’s door closed above, frowning.

“ _Hmph_. Who knew that the older you get, the more naps you’d need,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “On the plus side, I have full control of the TV and first choice of pizza. So there! Tell me of any nap that tops that!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The soul has been dampened! The First has been evicted. And William seems to have gotten control of the reins, at least for a while. I do wonder if Buffy has silk sheets. Hmmmm…
> 
> Buffy’s rambling, disconnected thoughts are Dr. Seuss quotes.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the bomb and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond amazing! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	57. Rock Me Gently

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William and Buffy bond, fervently! William attempts to explain the relationship between the human essence and the demon, but, well, it’s complicated.

__

 

[ _Rock me gently, rock me slowly, take it easy, don’t you know, that I have never been loved like this before.  ~'Rock Me Gently' by Andy Kim_ ](https://youtu.be/xxYJqagN8jM)

 

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy closed the door behind William and locked it before turning to face him again, feeling suddenly, ridiculously nervous. He looked like Spike. It was the same body she’d had sex with, made love to, screwed, tied up, tortured, and fucked many times. He had the same face, the same hair, the same mouth, the same arms. His eyes were the same blue – like the depths of the Aegean Sea – but the expressions in them were different. He had the same rich voice, but he spoke completely differently, like sweet English toffee instead of sizzling British curry.  He was the man she loved, the vampire she loved, but at the same time, he was someone different. Someone she’d never been with, but who she loved just the same.

Buffy cleared her throat uncomfortably. “I … don’t have any roses and the sheets are percale, not silk … a-and maybe not the cleanest,” she said apologetically. “But there are candles.”

She moved toward the dresser and rummaged around until she found a lighter to light the two white, pillar candles there. They flickered to life, and a soft aroma wafted up on the smoke, tickling the senses with vanilla and honey. As she was setting the lighter back down, a glittering reflection of the flame caught her eye and she looked up. The crystals of Anya’s wedding bouquet, which was tucked atop the mirror above the dresser, sparkled and winked down at Buffy, almost as if it were trying purposely to get her attention. William’s words to her about not being with someone outside a marriage bed came back to her and she suddenly felt like she was betraying him now, bringing him to her bed without any vows. 

Certainly, this wasn’t Victorian England, and cultural mores had changed dramatically, but still, at heart, she knew he still felt the same about it as he had in life. William’s desire to not let her see his body had not just been about what The First had done to him, of that she was sure. As much as she wanted him, as much as she wanted to show him how much she loved him, she didn’t want him to betray his own heart. She didn’t want to betray it either. Was she ready to say words, make vows, and mean them? _Really_ _mean them_?

Buffy impulsively opened her jewelry box and quickly found the skull ring that Spike had given her all those years ago while under Willow’s ‘my will be done’ spell. She picked it up and studied it thoughtfully for several long moments, chewing her lip in earnest, honest contemplation. She closed her eyes and touched the infinity necklace that hung around her neck, and a warmth enveloped her heart as a crystalline realization washed over her.

“Have you … changed your mind?” William asked softly, his hands stuffed down into the pockets of his fatigue pants, his shoulders shrugged up around his ears like a small boy. “It’s quite understandable, of course…”

Buffy shook her head as she turned around to face him. She stepped over and clicked the overhead light off, leaving the room bathed in just the gentle glow of the candles, along with a bit of late-day sunlight that crept in around the edges of the heavy drapes over the windows.

“No, it’s not that,” she assured him, taking a step to close the distance between them. “Have you? I know you said before … about being married?”

William’s face seemed to fall, and he dropped his gaze to the floor between them, making him look even more like a boy, lost and afraid.

“I … well, of course that would be proper and decorous. To have you as my wife has been my fervent desire, however unattainable, since first you held my heart within your palm. But I am a man of logic and reason, and I understand the impediments to that reality.”

“Well, maybe we can un-impede it a little bit,” Buffy suggested.

William’s brows furrowed, and he looked up at her, his head tilting in question.

Buffy reached out and pulled his left hand out of his pocket, holding his fingers toward herself, palm down. “I know this isn’t what you had in mind. It isn’t a traditional marriage with rude relatives drinking us into the poor house, party-crashing demons trying to split us up, and radioactive bridesmaid’s dresses, but…”

Buffy slowly slid the skull ring onto his left ring finger, locking her green eyes on his blue. “I take you, William, as my eternity, my love, my heart and soul. I promise to love you, cherish you, and support you for all the days of our lives. Until death do us part,” she vowed solemnly. Then added with a smile, “… and probably even afterwards knowing me, since I can’t seem to stay dead.”

William watched her in silence, his chest constricting almost painfully with all the emotions bursting inside. He felt like there was a marching drum corps in his chest, suddenly making his un-beating heart thud and pound wildly within his ribcage.

“Buffy …” he breathed after a moment, his eyes reflecting the awestruck emotions running through him. “I … find myself at a loss for words. I have no token to give you of my devotion,” he began, looking down at the ring in wonder. Then he noticed the simple band of silver on his pinky finger, and hastily pulled it off, dropping down onto one knee in front of her.

William’s soft eyes gazed up at her, sincere and heartfelt. His platinum locks curled wildly around his head like a riotous corona, the candlelight dancing off them joyously. His tongue darted out, wetting his lips nervously, his cheekbones standing out starkly in the flickering light of the candles. His hand enfolding hers was strong and cool, and trembled slightly against her palm.

Buffy bit her bottom lip, blinking back her swelling emotions as William slid the plain band onto her left ring finger. “I take you, Buffy, as my everything. My heart, my soul, my mind, and body are yours until the end of this world, and beyond. I vow my loyalty, my devotion, my undying fidelity to you alone. I promise to love you, cherish you, support and comfort you, forsaking all others, until death do us part … and then I will follow you into the ether. Forever yours.”

Buffy blinked the tears from her eyes, letting them fall gently down her cheeks as she pulled him back to his feet.

“You may now kiss the bride,” she whispered, leaning in to capture his full lips with hers in a passionate kiss.

William’s arms wrapped around her, holding her body against his tightly, as he returned the kiss fervently. Their tongues tangled and swirled against each other, tasting and tempting, building up their passion in the lambent light of the candles.

As the kiss broke, Buffy stepped back out of his embrace, then grasped the hem of his Army-green t-shirt and slowly lifted it up over his head. William raised his arms and let her pull it off him, his eyes coming back to meet hers as soon as the fabric cleared his face. She dropped the shirt on the floor and he reached out in turn to lift her shirt over her head.

Buffy still felt as nervous as a virgin, a blushing bride. She had to fight to keep herself from wrapping an arm shyly over her breasts when William’s eyes roamed over her body. To keep her hands busy, she reached out and unfastened his belt and the button on the waistband of his camo pants, then slowly slid the zipper down.

William’s hard cock sprung out, yearning and eager for her touch. Buffy let the pants slip down his legs, pulled by gravity and the weight of the belt. She looked up and met his eyes in the low light as she began to gently stroke his member, squeezing lightly, letting her fingers play over all the bumps and ridges of his hardness.

William gasped and his eyes fluttered closed, lost in the feeling of her hand around him, stroking him, making him wild with need.

“What are you saying, William?” Buffy asked when she saw his lips moving but could hear no sound coming out.  Her fingers swirled in the slick precum that seeped from his cum slit, spreading it around his glans in slow, gentle circles.

William’s lips stopped moving and his eyes sprung open, embarrassed. “It was simply a small distraction … I … errr … find it difficult to keep from …”

“Cumming?” Buffy provided helpfully.

William cleared his throat uncomfortably, but gave a short nod. “I … need you desperately, Buffy. I’m afraid I will be unable to be gentle and tender with you, particularly if you continue what you are doing.”

Buffy suddenly felt her heart drop and her throat tighten in fear. She abruptly stopped teasing his cock with her fingers. “You know I’m not a virgin, right?” she asked, biting her bottom lip worriedly.

“Indeed, yes, I am fully aware of that,” he assured her. “But that does that mean you do not deserve a tender lover who touches you with reverence, and worships your body as a sacred temple, does it?”

Buffy smiled softly up at him, her heart expanding with tender love for the sweet man before her. “No, I guess not,” she agreed in a low voice.

Buffy gently pressed the flat of her palm on his strong chest and William took a small step back, or tried to. He fell when his feet tangled in his pants. Luckily – or actually by Buffy’s design – the bed was right behind him and he ended up landing on it, sitting on the edge, rather than falling on the floor.

Buffy knelt down and pulled his fatigues completely off and tossed them aside. When she stood back up, she slipped her fingers beneath the elastic waist of her PJ bottoms and slid them slowly down her legs, stepping out of them and leaving them in a puddle on the floor. She stood directly in front of William, within arm’s reach, feeling vulnerable and exposed and still nervous. Her body quivered with the anxious adrenaline that surged through her, making her throat tight and her mouth dry.

“Do you want to touch me?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Urgently,” William replied in a throaty rumble as he reached his hands out to cup her breasts.

“So beautiful, Buffy. You are a goddess…” he breathed, letting his fingers trace lines of fire across her skin, circling her erect nipples, and making her heart pound so loudly she was sure they could hear it on the next street.

“Do you want to make love to me?” she asked in the same tight whisper.

“Unequivocally,” he replied, lifting his eyes from her breasts up to meet her eyes.

“I want you, baby. I need you,” she murmured as she stepped to the side and climbed onto the mattress with him.

Buffy lay back and opened her creamy thighs for him as William turned, following her. He touched cool, gentle kisses to her heated skin as he moved slowly up her body. Over her calves, her knees, and up to her silken thighs, which she’d spread for him. William moaned in pleasure as he kissed and suckled her soft, warm skin, sending gooseflesh racing over Buffy’s body. Shivers of pleasure washed over her as he nipped gently up the inside of her thighs to her aching center.

“William … oh … baby …” she breathed heavily as he touched soft kisses over her sweet mound of flesh.

His tongue darted between her slick folds, tasting, teasing, tantalizing.  Her hips lifted up, inviting, pleading, demanding. William moaned against her, a rumbling declaration of his desire as his tongue swirled around her clit, tasting her passion, drinking from her chalice of angelic nectar. 

Buffy reached for him, trying to pull him up her body, desperate to have him inside her, but he would not be rushed now. He wanted to taste every inch of her skin, drink every drop of her desire. He continued his leisurely, meandering trek up her body, tasting her beautiful skin with lips and tongue, nipping gently at her curves with his teeth, feeling every inch of quivering flesh with his roaming fingers. He wanted to devour her, to touch every part of her, to kiss every inch of shivering flesh, to hear every soft moan and strangled oath.

Buffy’s hands tangled in his soft curls as her body writhed and quivered beneath his touch. He was going vexingly, deviously, artfully slowly. He was driving her to the edge of madness, and it was delicious.

Buffy’s hands slid down over his strong shoulders, feeling the muscles of his back ripple beneath her palms as he covered her left breast with cool, tantalizing kisses. His lips reached her yearning nipple and he sucked the nubbin between his teeth, teasing with his tongue and lips. His hand found her other breast, and gently cupped her supple flesh in his palm, relishing the moans of approval that fell like music from her lips.

“William, please …” she begged, breathless and raspy.

“You are a goddess … I would worship you for eternity,” he whispered against her heated skin before kissing a line of fire up the tender skin of her neck.

Buffy clasped her hands on either side of his face and pulled his lips to hers, her fingertips dancing dangerously over his razor-sharp cheekbones. Their lips met, their tongues swirled, their bodies aligned; a movement so natural, so practiced that it took no more thought than blinking or breathing. 

Buffy lifted her legs, wrapping them around his slim hips, feeling his hard, yearning need seeking her own burning desire.  She reached between them and guided his hardness to her pulsing opening, slick and ready for him.

The kiss broke then, and he pulled back slightly until their eyes met and locked, both full of need, of desire, of passion.

“I do not mean to hurt you … but I don’t think I can … control …” he stammered before Buffy lifted her hips up and took his glans into her tight, supple channel, stretching her opening to accommodate his girth.

William gasped in rapture, his entire body trembling with pent-up desire.  Her tight, slick tunnel quivered around his cock, pulsing and squeezing, threatening to undo him just that quickly.

“You won’t hurt me,” she whispered, pressing her feet against his ass, urging his hips down as she lifted up, burying his column of hard, cold steel in her burning depths.

“Buffy … Oh … my Lord … I … you … oh …” he stammered as every emotion from awe to rapture to very un-gentlemanly wanton lust washed over his face.

“Don’t hold back, William. Let go. Give it all to me – your love, your need, your passion,” she urged him, squeezing and releasing her inner muscles around him in quick, hard bursts of bliss.

William lost his mind, his fine thread of control snapped, and his body rejoiced. He pulled back, her slick walls clinging to his hardness as if trying to hold him prisoner, then his hips jerked forward, burying his full length in her with one urgent, jarring thrust.

Buffy gasped, her body arching beneath him in pleasure. “Yes! William! Again! Harder!” she encouraged him, and William pulled back and plunged forward again, impaling her with his sword of rigid flesh.

And then he began pumping in a frantic, forceful rhythm, his hips grinding and bucking against her as she writhed beneath him in pleasure, gasping and moaning her approval. Her body responded to his in kind – hungry, yearning, needful – meeting his own desires with equal ferocity.

“I love you, Buffy … I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeated over and over as their bodies rose and fell, coming together and parting, only to join again in blissful rapture.

His declarations only stopped when he dipped his head down to kiss her, frantically, messily, passionately.  When their lips parted, his ardent chant resumed, floating through the air on the soft scents of vanilla and honey and desire.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

Their bodies moved as one, blissful and fervent, taking and giving. Hot skin against cool, rising, falling, meeting, parting. Soft flesh pressed against hard muscle, yielding, surrendering. The supple sheath of Buffy’s desire molding to William’s plunging sword, enveloping his hardness in the velvet fire of her love, her need, her passion, building his to heights he had never previously imagined possible.

“I cannot … hold …” he gasped out after only a few minutes and Buffy reached up a finger to touch his lips, stopping his apology.

“Don’t hold back … cum in me, William … cum, my baby. I love you … cum in me,” she urged him, her sex squeezing around his shaft like a vise, pulsing and throbbing in pure, undiluted desire.

Her words unraveled him completely and he thrust into her with a wild abandon that belied his honorable and gentle personality. She was firm and soft at the same time, her body strong and lithe against his. She was an inferno beneath him, surrounding him, engulfing him. Her sweet quim was like nothing he could’ve imagined, slick and yearning, tight and yet supple. It molded to his cock as if made for him and him alone. And she was his. Her vows rattled around in his passion-addled brain: _eternity, love, heart, soul, cherish, until death._ And they made him wild with a carnal craving the depths of which he never knew existed. Somehow knowing she was his made him want her even more.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Buffy gasped, each word driven from her core with the powerful thrust of his hard, frantic cock into the depths of her womanhood. His pubic bone slammed against her clit, sending bright bolts of pleasure bursting out in all directions, tingling her skin with sparks of rapture and burning her flesh with the flames of desire.

A wordless groan of completion rumbled from William’s lips, vibrating the air with utter ecstasy that filled his soul, his body, his heart and mind, blinding him to anything and everything except the angel in his arms.

Buffy’s body bucked against him as his spunk erupted from his balls, exploding into her burning channel in a torrent of rapturous surrender, filling her with his cool, sweet seed. Her fingers dug painfully into his strong shoulders, clinging to him to keep from being washed away in the waves of primal lust.

“Yes … William … yes …” she moaned, her body quivering and jerking as the orgasm rolled over her, drowning her in a sea of sweet ecstasy. “God, baby … yes.”

His lips captured hers again, swallowing her moan, taking it into his soul to have and to hold, forever. Buffy’s hands tangled in his curls, urging him to rest his body against hers, and he lowered down gently. His hips continued to move against her slowly and she could already feel his shaft beginning to stiffen inside her again, his need, like hers, seemingly limitless.

When the kiss broke, William took his weight back onto his elbows, rising up enough so he could gaze down on her. His eyes were intent on soaking her in: her flushed skin, her sparkling hazel eyes that danced in the candlelight, her disheveled golden hair splayed out on the pillow, her swollen lips, so delectable.   He wanted to remember every nuance, everything about her, just like this.

“How is it possible that I want you so much? Still? I need you, Buffy. I need your body, your moans, your racing heart. I need to taste you, to feel you, to have you. I do not know how Spike does it,” he breathed.

“How Spike does what?” Buffy asked, her heart slowly returning to semi-normalcy.

“How he can be near you and not touch you. Not … not _have you_ every moment of every day, not be inside you like this,” William admitted, his hips still grinding slowly against her in a deliberately pleasurable rhythm. “You are, indeed, an angel and I am in heaven in your arms.”

Buffy smiled up at him, her heart nearly bursting with love for this sweet, sweet man. She brushed some curls from his forehead and said, “I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to ask him.

“But, don’t you feel what he does? I mean … How does that work? You aren’t separate, but you aren’t the same either,” she asked, her own hips responding to his, churning slowly against him, meeting his and parting in a gentle, rolling dance.

“It is comp—” William began but Buffy touched a finger to his lips, stopping him.

“No, don’t tell me that it’s complicated. Tell me how it works. Please … I want to understand,” she beseeched him.

William took a deep breath and closed his eyes a moment trying to gather his thoughts, his hips stilling, but still pressed against her, his desire growing, but tempered enough to wait. Finally, he opened his eyes and met hers.

“Have you ever read Freud’s theory of the ego and the id?” he asked.

Buffy crinkled her nose up. “A little,” she admitted. “It was …”

“Complicated,” William supplied.

“I was going to say ‘confusing,’” Buffy corrected him with a smile.

“Indeed. Well, it is one due to the other.”

William slipped off to the side of her, half laying atop her, half on the mattress, to a less distracting position. He would not be capable of explaining the dynamic between the demon and the humanity while buried inside her burning body, that much was certain.

“It is much the same between Spike and me. He is the id. He is instinct and impulsiveness and passion. He is instant gratification with no eye to morality or consequences.

“I serve as the ego, trying to contain his superior strength, to make him think beyond this moment and look to the future, beyond what he desires, to consider what is proper.

“We appear separately to you, and at the most elemental level, perhaps we are. But in practice, what you, and the world, sees as the vampire ‘Spike,’ is one, comingled psyche. A very dysfunctional, rived, and complicated one, to be certain.

“We share thoughts because we are one being, but, just like with your conscience, he can choose to ignore me, to shut me out completely, to lock me away and refuse to acknowledge my opinions or advice. And, certainly, he was quite good at that for quite a long while.

“We are the same entity, the same psyche, the same person. We were re-borne together when the demon rose as two halves of one whole. I was pulled from heaven – a place I must admit I never thought I’d be – and he was pulled from hell. We are one, but we have different roles, different influences on behavior,” William tried to explain.

“Freud compares the dynamic of the id and ego to that of a rider and a horse. The ego must control the id, as the rider controls the horse, but at times, the rider is obliged to guide the horse where it wants to go. Likewise, the ego must, at times, conform to the desires of the id. Although, with Spike and I, there are many times – most times, in point of fact – that he simply takes the bit between his teeth and does whatever he wishes.

“May I ask you something?” he questioned.

“Sure…” Buffy answered, still trying to follow his explanation.

“You are powerful, strong, and capable. If you desired to, you could simply rob a bank or carry off an armored car full of money. But you haven’t. You worked at a job that was beneath you, you toiled and labored for pennies instead. Why?”

“Because stealing would be wrong,” she answered automatically.

“And yet, you stole gems for Warren …”

Buffy frowned, lowering her eyes from his. “That was … different,” she whispered, ashamed.

“You felt threatened, so you chose to ignore your ego, ignore your conscience, and allow the id, the instinct, to decide the course of action, heedless of future consequences. You let the darkness lead, instead of the light.

“It is the same between the darkness and the light within this body, the demon and the human, the biggest difference is, with you, there is more light than darkness. Within us there is much more darkness – and a requirement for blood to survive – so the light, the ego, the conscience, is more easily ignored, the reins I try to keep on him are often utterly ineffective.

“At least until recently … until you,” he finished.

“But …” Buffy sighed, not even sure how to ask her question. “Okay, if you’re one person … how are you here now without him, and how can he be here most of the time without you?”

“He is never here without me, or I without him, at least to some degree,” William told her. “Although, I admit that there were periods of time that the demon’s deeds were all too much for me to bear and I retreated, huddling in the small flicker of light, hiding from the darkness.

“But, as the stronger id, he decides what face to show the world, not me. And the mask he chooses is Spike – cockney ruffian with wretched hair. On rare occasions, he will allow me to decide what mask to wear, and I choose William – academic gentleman and tragic poet.

“Of course, at the moment, he is uncharacteristically weaker than I, due to his own foolish arrangement to restore our original soul, so I get to choose.”

“Can you … vamp out?” Buffy wondered.

William’s face transformed in an instant into the vampire, fangs and golden eyes flashing, then back into his own handsome features.

“Huh …” she muttered, shaking her head in bewilderment as her notion of William and Spike being two separate things started to crumble.

“I do not know why our separateness is so apparent to you. Perhaps because, as the Slayer, you can see our origins, see the dividing line between dark and light.”

“But, you talk about him as a different person, too,” Buffy argued.

“Yes, we see each other much as you do. The wild, blood-thirsty stallion and the rider trying to hold him back,” William confirmed.

“But, then, shouldn’t you know how Spike … does it? How he … doesn’t touch me all the time, I mean?”

William drew his brows together and grew quiet, trying to think how to explain it, but finally looked up at her and said, “It is like the horse and rider analogy. The rider may know they are on a rocky path, he may feel the horse stumble or pull up lame, but he never actually feels the rocks beneath his own feet.

“It is like watching someone hit a home run, versus actually hitting it yourself,” he continued.

“Or someone trying to explain what it is like to eat a ripe, juicy peach to someone who has only watched others eat it. The flavor of it, the feel of it against your lips, the texture of it between your teeth, the sweet juice sliding over your tongue,” he explained.

William slowly slid two fingers between Buffy’s thighs, dipping them gently into the sweet nectar that was their combined release, and pulled them out, glistening and dripping with cum. He sucked them between his lips, letting his eyes flutter closed and a deep moan of pleasure resonate from his chest as he sucked them clean.

He blinked his eyes open, looking a little more dazed than he had a moment ago, and met her gaze. “How can one explain the heaven of a peach to someone who has never tasted one?”

Buffy swallowed hard and licked her lips, nodding slowly.

“Most of the time I am a step removed. I see, feel, touch things only through a layer of insulation, through the id,” William continued after a moment.

He reached over Buffy and pulled the comforter that lay discarded on the other side of the bed toward them, covering her breasts with it. He then cupped her soft, round flesh through the thick fabric, gently running his thumb back and forth over her nipple.

“It is pleasant, but it is not …”

He pulled the comforter away and repeated the action, cupping her hot skin in his cool palm, teasing her nipple to hardness, making her heart dance in her chest and her body squirm beneath his touch.

“… passion,” he finished, dipping his mouth down to pull her other nipple between his lips.

Buffy’s back arched, and a moan drifted from somewhere deep inside her, the passion building again.

William pulled back, releasing her nipple, and ran the back of his fingers gently down her cheek, from her temple to her chin. “You are Buffy. You are the Slayer. You are light. You are darkness.

“I am Spike. I am William. I am darkness. I am light. I am … in love with you to the depths of my being. And I want to be inside you right now more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

Buffy bit her bottom lip then let her mouth curve into a seductive smile. “If you hold the reins on the vampire, who holds the reins on you?”

“You,” William breathed, sliding back atop her. “Only you.”

Buffy reached between them and guided his hardness to her aching sex as soon as William was atop her. William didn’t hesitate this time but pressed in before she could lift up. He moved slowly, wanting to feel every inch of her, every muscle, every bump, every throb of her heart, every spasm of desire as he sunk deeper into paradise.

“Oooh …” Buffy moaned, gooseflesh racing over her body, tingling all the way to her soul. “I think we may be in really big trouble then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What will the Scoobies think of this? Buffy and Spike married? Hell, what will Spike think of it when he gets back? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the bomb and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond amazing! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	58. Let's Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William must say goodbye as the vampire’s strength returns.

* * *

 

William trailed his fingers up and down Buffy’s spine where she lay sleeping atop him, her body was as warm as a summer sunset and as soft as a cloud against his.  He didn’t think it would’ve been possible for him to love her more than he had already, but the last hours in her arms proved him wrong.

He would give anything to stay here with her, to somehow keep the demon silenced, but he knew that he could not. And he knew that she would not want that, either.

As much as he hated to admit it, Buffy needed a monster in her man. But, she did need the man, as well. Spike would not have her if not for him. That was his only consolation. She needed them both. She loved them both.

Spike had started nattering in William’s mind half an hour ago. The demon was healing from the damage done to him by the restored soul, and he would be at full strength soon.  With whatever Buffy had done to dim the purity of that renewed soul, there would be no danger now to either of them. Things would be back to normal soon. Which meant William would be relegated to living through Spike, of being just that slightest bit removed from the world around them, removed from her.

William simply wasn’t strong enough to overpower the demon in that regard, not when Spike was at full strength. His only chance of touching her again like this would be if Spike allowed it, which the vampire was not likely to do.

This would have to be enough. Enough for a lifetime. Enough for eternity.

“Buffy,” he whispered against her wild tangle of soft hair that lay across his cool skin. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

Buffy stirred atop him, drawing in a deep breath and yawning it out sleepily. “I love you too, baby,” she murmured back, not raising her head from his shoulder.

“Will you kiss me then, just one last time?” he asked, stroking her hair back away from her face gently.

Buffy blinked several times, trying to wake up enough to comprehend his words. “What do you mean?” she asked groggily, pushing up a bit to look down at him.

“I will need to go soon… Spike is recovering, he will reclaim his place,” he told her. “I would have a kiss to take with me … if you would not mind terribly.”

“William …” she breathed, understanding dawning on her. “But … you’ll come back again, right?”

His blue eyes shifted away from hers, unable to hold her gaze. “I … do not know.”

“No, don’t say that,” she pleaded. “You will come back. Spike … he’ll listen to me and …”

William touched a finger to her lips, silencing her. “Kiss me,” he whispered, a low, emotional plea.

Buffy dropped her lips to his in a frantic, passionate kiss, cupping his face in her palms, her fingers playing along his razor-sharp cheekbones. She felt him begin to harden again inside her and she began to move her hips in slow, sensuous circles atop him, building his fire again.

He moaned against her mouth, filling her soul with his passion, his desire, his love for her. And then their hips were moving together, a slow, primal dance of lust. His hardness growing, stretching her, filling her; her supple channel molding around him, tight and warm.

The kiss broke long enough for Buffy to gasp in much-needed oxygen, but then resumed, teeth nipping at lips, tongues swirling, the taste of their lovemaking a sweet, tangy spice on their tongues, tingling between them.

William’s fingers slipped between them and found her clit as she rolled her hips forward, making Buffy gasp against his mouth in pleasure. Her body melted into him like a heated candle, her passion burning him to his core. Fusing. Melding. United in love and desire.

“I love you … I love you…” she murmured against his mouth, urgent and fervid in its veracity. 

“I love you,” came the deep, vibrating echo of her words before his lips engulfed hers again.

And then something changed.

Buffy couldn’t explain what precisely it was. Their bodies still moved together, urgent and thirsty. Their lips still nipped and consumed each other’s, their tongues still danced, his fingers still lifted her ever higher as his cock filled her with his desire. But something had changed ever so slightly.

And then a low, melodious growl rent the air, vibrating through her like a quivering arrow, straight to her deepest, darkest, most secret desires. And her body replied in kind, pulsing and throbbing, her hips slamming down harder, no longer a sensuous dance, but a demand. More. Give me more.

In the next moment, Spike flipped them over, taking the control away from her. He pushed her knees up to her ears, opening her up to him fully, and began to slam down into her with all his power. Wordless cries of pleasure were driven from Buffy’s lips as he thrust into her slick quim mercilessly, driving his steely column of flesh hard and deep into her throbbing channel.

She reached up to cling to his shoulders lest he fuck her right out of this world and into the next. Her nails dug into his flesh painfully, which only spurred him to plunge into her that much harder, that much deeper, driving at a feverish pace. He took and she gave, surrendering to the passion, to the hunger of her vampire lover. He poured his ravenous desire over her like a burning flame, driving shrieks and oaths of pleasure from her lips with every mad thrust. Every word, every curse, every gasp from her fueled his thirst for her, and her body responded to his carnal need with wanton demands of her own.

“Fuck, Buffy … fuck … cum … cum for me … cum now … oh, Jesus … Fuuuccckkk!” Spike roared as his control unraveled and his lust exploded in a deluge of wordless growls and gasps.

His cool semen erupted powerfully, battering against the entrance to her womb, weaving an ethereal tapestry of glittering gold through her mind. Buffy’s scream of complete and utter annihilation joined his roar, filling the room with rapture. The echo of their release careened back, cascading over them, tingling like electricity against their skin. Her body trembled violently and jerked against him, urging his cock deeper still. Her nails dug into the hard muscle of his shoulders, drawing blood, as her control shattered like a delicate crystal.

Spike released her legs and collapsed heavily atop her as she gasped for breath, her body still trembling with aftershocks and reverberations from her climax.

“I’m sorry … sorry … couldn’t … hold …” he stammered between deep intakes of un-needed air, his gasps matching hers in intensity.

“You … fucking … vampire!” Buffy screeched at him, rolling them back over violently and pinning him beneath her.

Spike looked up at her, his need for air abruptly ended, his blue eyes suddenly wide and wary. She looked and sounded completely brassed off. To confirm his suspicion, she let out a low, ominous growl before capturing his lips in a frantic, livid, burning kiss.

The kiss broke as suddenly as it began, Buffy sitting back up on his hips, her chest heaving, her body flushed with heat, her eyes having turned just a little too hazel for Spike to be comfortable.

“Slayer?” he tried tentatively.

“You fucking bit me!” she accused, holding up her bandaged arm.

“Did I?” he asked cautiously. “Didn’t mean to.”

“You’re an idiot! You went and got a sparkly new soul that would burn you to fucking dust!” she accused next.

“Didn’t know I was gettin’ that, pet,” he replied, keeping his voice calm.

“Because you’re an idiot!” she explained rationally.

“Pretty sure we’ve established that before, luv,” Spike agreed.

“Yeah, well, you aren’t getting any less idiotic as you get older! Do you know what I had to do to fix it?” she demanded of him.

“Steal the snow machine they used in ‘The Shining’?” he guessed. “ _Redrum_ ,” he added in the creepy kid voice from the movie.

“Don’t be a smartass!”

“Thought you liked my smartass-iness,” he contended.

“You are so wrong! I _love_ your smartass! Which is why I get so pissed off when you go and do stupid things like this and try to burn it into fucking …  fucking …” She threw her hands up in frustration, words failing her.

“I could just strangle you right now!” she said finally, balling her hands into fists to keep from wrapping them around his neck and squeezing.

Spike grabbed her wrists and held them down against his abdomen to keep her from deciding that pummeling him would work just as well, or actually better than, strangling.

“I’m sorry, Buffy,” he said softly. “I know I hurt you. I know I should’ve trusted you to … to love me enough to understand. I don’t know how much more I can apologize…”

“More,” Buffy pouted. “Lots and lots more.”

“I’m sorry.”

“More.”

“I’m sorry.”

“More.”

Spike released her hands. He then rolled her over, more gently this time, so that he was atop her again, and wrapped his arms beneath her, around her, holding her tight. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmured, his face buried against her neck, tenderly nuzzling her warm skin. “I’m sorry to infinity and back.”

“More,” she whispered.

“I don’t actually think there is more than infinity, kitten,” Spike reasoned.

“ _Hmph_ ,” she muttered and then sighed. “Fine,” she said sharply, clearly not meaning that it was fine, but resigned.

Spike sometimes wondered if she actually knew the meaning of the word ‘fine’, but he wisely never asked.

“Are you okay?” she asked after a few moments. “I mean … does it still hurt badly?”

Spike shook his head against her shoulder and rolled to the side, unpinning her. “Just flashes here and there,” he admitted, laying on his side facing her, his head propped up in one hand, his curls tousled and wild around his face. “Not like … not like it was.

“Thank you, Buffy,” he murmured, reaching out to touch her face gently as she turned on her side to face him, mirroring him. “I know I mucked everything up. Can you forgive me?”

Buffy reached a hand out too, trailing it gently from his shoulder down his side to his hip, letting her fingers explore all the dips and rises of his muscles along the way.

Finally, she looked back up to his eyes, so blue and earnest. “Of course, I can. Because that’s what people who love each other do, Spike. And I love you.”

Spike nodded, letting his gaze drop down to the sheets between them. “But … not enough t’ marry me,” he whispered, barely loud enough for Buffy to hear.

“What …?” she asked softly, her brows furrowed. “You mean this?” she questioned, reaching out to touch the skull ring on his left ring finger.

Spike nodded, looking back up at her. “Known me for how long? Years now … known the poofter fer two bloody hours and yer pledging your undying love to him.”

“First, it was way longer than two hours, not even counting all the time in there trying to fix your soul and get you both out of The First’s control.

“Second, you never asked. You’ve never once mentioned a single, solitary thing about marriage. Ever. Not one hint or innuendo or clue. None,” Buffy defended.

“And, third, what’s your name?” she questioned defiantly.

Spike brows drew together, his whole face awash in confusion. “Spike,” he answered curtly.

“No. It’s not. It’s _William_ ,” she contended. “William the Bloody … ring any bells?”

Spike scowled at her. “So, what are ya saying?”

“I’m saying, _you nitwit_ , that I didn’t just make that vow to him, I made it to you. And if you’d stop being so damn jealous of him for one goddamned minute, you’d know that I need you both. I love you both. And I vow my love to you both,” she asserted.

Spike bit his bottom lip, his eyes softening. “I … thought of it – of marrying you – plenty. I never mentioned it cos didn’t think you’d …  I know I’m not … Well, monster, yeah? It’s just … of course I want to marry you, Buffy. Did ya really mean it for me, too?”

Buffy sighed heavily, then rolled over and got up to her feet next to the bed, beckoning him to join her.

“I’m surprised Anya didn’t go with nude for her wedding,” Buffy observed as she stood facing Spike, both of them in nothing but their birthday suits.

Buffy cleared her throat, trying to remember the vow she’d said earlier, which had been just off the top of her head. Pretty sure she had most of it in her mind, she took Spike’s hands in hers, locked her gaze on his, and began, “I take you, William, as my eternity, my love, my heart and soul, my husband. I promise to love you, cherish you, and support you for all the days of our lives. Until death do us part … oh, and forsaking all others. I forgot that part before.

“Forsaking all others, I will love you until death do us part, and beyond. Also, I promise to forgive you, but wish you’d stop doing really idiotic things, because I’m gonna be uberly-pissed if you dust yourself.  I’ll hunt you down in hell and kick your ass if that happens. ‘K?”

A short burst of laughter mixed with a sob escaped Spike’s lips, as he clamped his eyes shut to hold back the tears, dropping his head forward as if in prayer. The words echoed in his mind and flooded his heart, overwhelming him, undoing him completely. He never thought to hear such words from her mouth … not directed at him, at least. He’d dreamed of it. But he never allowed himself to ever truly hope for it.

“I love you, Buffy,” he said finally, his voice thick with emotion. He opened his eyes, lifted his head and locked his gaze on hers. “I vow to not let you down again, to keep my promises to you always, to be at your side forever, and to lie atop your grave when you leave this world and wait for the sunrise, and find you again in our next life…”

“When we’re both cats?” she asked, smiling softly.

“When we’re both cats,” he agreed, blinking back tears.

“You may kiss the bride,” she whispered, rising up on tiptoes to touch her lips to his.

Spike swept her off her feet and into his arms, kissing her passionately. Just as suddenly as he’d picked her up, he turned and dropped her unceremoniously onto the bed.

She squeaked in surprise, then began to laugh as he dove atop her, his own laugh as deep and rich as warm maple syrup in the wintertime. They wrestled around, rolling this way then that, one gaining the advantage and then the other as squeals and peals of laughter rang in the room.

Finally, breathless and panting, Buffy surrendered, letting him pin her arms up over her head, his body pressed down all along her length.

“Do have one bone t’ pick with you, Slayer,” he told her as he began nuzzling her neck, sending shivers down her spine.

“Yeah, what’s that?” she asked, wriggling beneath him as he found the spot behind her ear that made her batshit crazy.

“Ya let the poofter have the first dance in the new bed.”

Buffy laughed. “Well, it’s who gets the last dance that matters, right?”

Spike lifted up to meet her eyes. “And I always get the last dance, don’t I?”

“Always,” she agreed, slipping her legs out from under him and wrapping them around his hips. “So, we better get on that, dontcha think?”

“Mmmmm … let’s dance,” he purred. He dropped his mouth over hers and slipped his tongue between her lips as his cock pressed into her slick, hot channel, beginning their eternal dance yet again, this time as husband and wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Spike handled it pretty well, even if his patented self-doubt snuck in there for a bit. What will the Scoobies think of this? Buffy and Spike married? And what’s going on with The First? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the bomb and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are equally beyond amazing! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	59. Complicated Relationships

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the group tries to plan how to fight The First, Buffy and Spike are caught up in some old issues that are complicating their relationship.

****

* * *

 

**Three Days Later.**

The gang was all here: Buffy, Spike, Willow, Tara, Anya, Xander, Dawn, and Giles. They were gathered in the basement of Buffy’s house, sitting in a circle of chairs with a thick line of salt surrounding them on the floor which contained a protective ward. Since they were now sure that it was The First Evil stirring up trouble, and they weren’t sure just what powers it had, they were taking no chances with this meeting as they tried to come up with a plan of attack.

In addition to the warded ring of salt, which may or may not keep The First out, they were also communicating via a mental ‘conference call’ using Willow’s abilities, so anyone looking at them would think they were just all sitting around in a circle stupidly looking at each other. To each of them, however, it sounded as if everyone was talking normally.

“Giles,” Buffy began, thinking the words out into whatever magic Willow used to link them, “how many Potentials are there? I mean, in addition to the three you brought back with you from across the pond?”

Sitting next to Buffy, on her left, Giles rubbed his forehead thoughtfully, shaking his head. “There were hundreds, perhaps more. I do not know for certain. All the records of Potential Slayers were lost in the explosion of the Council headquarters. What I was able to ascertain is that the Bringers have killed many of them already, along with their Watchers.”

“How are the Bringers finding them?” Buffy wondered.

Giles sighed heavily. “I’m afraid I do not know. Perhaps records stolen from the Council? Perhaps some form of magic from The First. Perhaps it has some way of … detecting their latent power. It’s simply unknown.”

“That’s a lot of ‘perhaps-es’,” Buffy observed, frowning.

“Indeed … I’m sorry. I do not have any solid answers,” Giles admitted.

“So, we don’t know for sure how many girls are even in danger. And we don’t know where they are, either,” Buffy pressed. “And if they kill all the Potentials, then kill Faith and me … then game over. No more Slayer … ever.”

Giles nodded solemnly. “I’m afraid that is the case. I was able to locate a few Potentials via surviving Watchers and ex-Watchers who were not in the building when it exploded. They are making their way here, to be put under our protection. We have the coven in Devon working to devise a spell to track down others who did not have a Watcher. As they find them, they will direct them here, as well. I cannot tell you how catastrophic it would be for the world if the Slayer line is obliterated.”

“For the record, I would personally vote against it, too,” Buffy put in sarcastically.

“I’m certain that we all share your sentiment, Buffy,” Giles assured her.

Buffy sighed, taking a few moments as she thought, then said, “Well, I’m not one to judge, but the blind mice don’t seem to be the most blend-in-y bunch in the world. There has to be someone directing them, helping them travel, buying those pretty, sharp knives for them. I’m guessing The First doesn’t have a charge account at the Evil Arms and Apparel Superstore, Hair Salon and Gas Station – someone has to be funding this and organizing them.”

“Indeed, it would appear there is a human working with them, organizing them, perhaps as some type of go-between between them and The First … perhaps more than one human. Certainly, the destruction of the Council building, just when nearly all of the members were inside, was no coincidence,” Giles agreed. “It was well planned and executed. Not a slash and burn, haphazard operation.”

“Okay, so we have the mice, and we have someone yanking their tails – or several someones – and we have no more Council to help us with any of this,” Buffy observed. “Were you able to salvage anything before their dusty library got extra-crispy?” the Slayer asked.

Giles reached down and picked up a few books and folders from the floor in front of him, holding them up. “I’m afraid it’s not much. I perused them on the flight back, but, there is very little of use in them, most of it we’d already deduced.  The First predates any written history, and it rarely shows its true face.”

“We’ve seen it,” Buffy interjected, looking over at Spike. “It wasn’t really Miss America material.”

“Butt ugly,” Spike agreed, from his place next to her on her right.

“Indeed, well, I doubt that information will be of much use in defeating it,” Giles remarked dryly.

“Unless it’s like the Beast, in ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and then maybe Buffy could just kiss it and turn it into a prince,” Dawn suggested hopefully.

All eyes turned to her, wide and disbelieving. “It could happen!” Dawn defended.

“I think I’d rather die,” Buffy admitted, grimacing.

“Actually,” Anya provided. “For that to work, it has to be the kiss of his one true love … not just a one-night stand or a quick poke behind the Bronze.”

Giles cleared his throat meaningfully, then continued as if nothing had been said. “It can change form. It only appears in the guise of someone who's passed away, which we’ve already established.

“Also, it's not corporeal. It can't touch or fight on its own. It only works through those it manipulates, its followers, the Bringers, and perhaps other humans who have pledged fealty.

“The First is unlike anything we've faced before, Buffy. I mean, there's evil and then there's the thing that created evil, the source. It has had eternities to plan, to act, and endless resources. How to defeat it? I honestly don't know,” the ex-Watcher admitted.

“But we must find a way,” he continued. “If the Slayer line is eliminated, then the Hellmouth has no guardian. The balance is destroyed. I'm afraid it falls to you, Buffy. Of course, we'll do what we can, but you're the only one who has the strength to protect these girls, and the world, against what's coming.”

Buffy shook her head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Giles. It’s already tried to divide us, to infiltrate our ranks. That means it doesn’t just fear me, it fears all of us … as a group.”

“Slayer with friends and family,” Spike put in. “Bloody frightening, it is, to the evil of the world. Trust me, I would know.”

“Exactly,” Buffy agreed. “My un-alone-ness is what’s gotten us through before, and it’s what will do it again this time. But, we need more information on The First – what can it do? What are its powers? What weaknesses does it have?”

“That is where our information is sorely lacking,” Giles informed her.

“Well, that just means we need to find someone who’s been around longer than the Council,” Buffy suggested. “Anya, what about D'Hoffryn? Do you think he could tell us anything useful?”

Anya shrugged. “Maybe he knows something, but most likely he wouldn’t tell us,” she told Buffy. “I mean, what’s in it for him to help us?”

“Well, you know,” Buffy countered. “A vampire once told me that demons like to talk big about destroying the world, but in truth, they don’t really want anything to change. Without humans what would they have left? No Happy Meals with legs walking around, no one to torture, no souls to corrupt, no vengeance to wreak. I’m thinking other demons might not be so keen on this big guy coming up here and taking away their nummy treats and chew-toys.”

“Brilliant vamp said that, was it?” Spike asked, smirking.

“He has his moments,” Buffy agreed, glancing at him wryly and then back to Anya.

Anya nodded thoughtfully. “That is a reasonable point,” she agreed. “He must still love me, he did give us that squirmy little Haborym demon for a ritual wedding offering.”

“Which is still in my underwear drawer, I might point out,” Xander interjected unhappily.

“I’m sure when he gets done reading all those meticulously descriptive ‘Dear Penthouse’ letters you wrote about the copious hours of orgasmic pleasure we’ve engaged in, he’ll come out,” Anya informed him, waving a dismissive hand.

Xander cleared his throat and laughed uncomfortably as everyone turned amused eyes on him. “Such a kidder,” he lied as his face blossomed with fire.

Buffy shook her head and moved on. “Okay, Anya will talk to D'Hoffryn. What other demons or angels do we know that might have an interest in helping us?”

Everyone sat thinking for a minute in silence, but no new ideas immediately sprang to mind.

“I think we mostly killed them all,” Willow observed after a time.

“Indeed, how terribly inconvenient,” Giles interjected sarcastically.

“C’mon, there has to be more out there! Spike! Anya! You’ve been around forever! Don’t tell me you don’t know more demons than just D'Hoffryn!” Buffy insisted.

“Well, there’s Lloyd,” Spike offered with a shrug. “Not sure how old he is, but pretty sure he had some hand in shoving that little house o’ horrors into my brain. Thinking he might not be the best ally.

“That brings someone else t’ mind, though,” he told her, sitting forward in his seat. “Sorceress, name of Lilith. Can’t be sure how old she is, but she’s got power.”

“Lilith?” Willow and Giles both asked at once, their interest piqued.

“Not _the_ Lilith,” Willow continued, her brows furrowed in question, but her eyes hopeful.

Spike shrugged. “Couldn’t say. Never asked. Never said. You do know where the Army got that rule: ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ yeah? Demon rules of etiquette.”

“I am shocked that demons know the meaning of the word ‘etiquette’,” Giles remarked snidely.

“You’re shocked when yer dick gets hard, too, I reckon,” Spike snarked back.

“Ok! Wait! _The_ Lilith? You mean Frasier’s wife? She’s an _actual_ demon, not just playing one on TV?” Buffy questioned, stopping their squabble.

Most everyone looked at her like she’d grown a second head, everything from pity to amusement shone in their eyes. Xander and Dawn were the only ones who seemed genuinely interested in the answer to that question.

“Different Lilith, pet,” Spike provided.

“Lilith was Adam’s first wife,” Anya explained helpfully. “Before Eve.”

Buffy shook her head, her face contorting in confusion. “His _first_ wife? What first wife?”

“The one that God made from clay so that horny, sad, misogynistic Adam wouldn’t be alone and have to diddle himself,” Anya explained derisively. “God made her the same way He made Adam, out of clay, so she felt she should be his equal, but Adam had other ideas, as most men do. 

“She wanted to be on top sometimes, maybe a little reverse cow-girl or some sixty-nine action, which should be her prerogative. I mean, how many times can you do it in missionary without some variety?” Anya pointed out reasonably.

“But Adam was like…” Anya lowered her voice to mimic an angry, male tone, “‘Screw you, bitch. I’m not getting sand up the crack of my ass. You’re so proud of being made from the earth, you lay your sweet ass down in it and spread your legs. Don’t forget: God made you for me! I own you! You’re here to say, ‘Yes, Sir’, cook, clean, suck my cock, and spread those legs when I want a piece of you.’”

Anya’s voice returned to normal as she went on, “He was a misogynistic, sadistic, controlling ass who thought he was superior to her and she was beneath him, in more ways than one. So, she told him he could go get fucked and flew away.”

“Of course, Adam went crying back to Daddy, telling Him that the woman He’d made had run off. God, apparently also being a Dickhead with a capital ‘D’, sent angels after her to track her down and drag her back like a sex slave. Of course, she was more powerful than they realized, so they didn’t succeed. They ended up making a deal with her, and God just made his precious Adam another woman to dominate: Eve.

“God should’ve smacked the little cry-baby in the mouth and told him to grow the hell up, and then put him in a cell with a couple of big demons with barbed dicks for a few eons and let Adam see how it felt to be on bottom all the time,” Anya finished with a curt nod of her head.

“I must’ve missed that chapter in vacation bible school,” Xander admitted.

“You didn’t go to vacation bible school, remember? You came and hung out at my house, instead,” Willow reminded him.

“Oh, yeah,” Xander mumbled in reply. “I would’ve gone if I’d known there were shenanigans like that in there.”

“Now I know why Mom never sent us to church,” Dawn muttered, her face flushing red.

Buffy looked at Spike. “Have you heard this story before?”

Spike shrugged, leaning back in his chair, stretching his legs out, and hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. “Various incarnations of it. Must say, this one’s got the most swear words and BDSM leanings, though. I like it.”

Buffy shook her head again, clearly also having missed that chapter in bible school. “Okay, well … is this _that_ Lilith?”

Spike shrugged again, still leaning back casually with his legs spread out in front of him. “Dunno, luv.”

“Do you think she’ll help us?” Buffy pressed.

Another shrug from Spike. “Dunno.”

“Well, here’s an idea: find out,” Buffy ordered, losing patience.

Spike arched an incredulous brow at her and she reluctantly added, “Please.”

“Maybe I could … help with that?” Willow asked. “I mean … Lilith! That would be … _wow_!”

“Fangirl, much?” Buffy asked, rolling her eyes, but then she shrugged. “Sure, why not?

“Where is this … what is she? A demon? An angel?” Buffy asked.

“Well, of course she’s a demon,” Anya interjected. “Any woman who isn’t subservient to men is declared a demon by the Powers that Be. Who, I can assure you, are all insecure, homophobic, misogynistic men with pencil dicks and delusions of grandeur.”

Buffy’s brows went up skeptically, but offered a token agreement, “Uh … right.

“So, where is this demon?” she asked, looking back at Spike.

“Istanbul,” he told her.

“Istanbul!? As in Turkey? Geez! Why can’t these big-bads live around the corner? We are on the Hellmouth, after all! You’d think we’d attract a better class of demon around here,” Buffy complained. “How long will it take to go there and see her?”

Spike shrugged. “A week or so. But, we could just call ‘er and see where she stands on the topic,” he suggested.

Buffy looked at him in shock, her brows raised nearly to her hairline, incredulous. “A possibly biblical demon has a phone, and you know her number?”

“She’s what ya might call ‘progressive.’ And, yeah, might’ve had need to get it from her last time I was there,” Spike answered a little warily. Something about Buffy’s tone was making him uneasy.

“Explain to me again how it is you know the phone numbers for all these other women, but not mine,” Buffy demanded, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

Spike’s mouth moved, opening and closing, but no words emitted from his mind to be telegraphed to the group for several moments. “Rotten luck?” he tried finally, looking anxious.

“Yeah, and I’m thinking that you will not be getting any _luckier_ tonight, either,” she muttered aloud, barely a whisper, but knowing he could hear her.

Refocusing, Buffy went back into Slayer mode. “Okay, Spike and Willow, you guys call this … Lilith demon-person and see what you can find out, and Anya, you’ve got D'Hoffryn,” Buffy directed.

“Giles, I need you to figure out how we’ll know when a Potential is coming so we can try to protect them from the Bringers and maybe how many there are. Tara, maybe you could help him, working with the Coven?  And, I guess we need to figure out where we’re gonna put them all. Dawn and Xander? Can you guys deal with that?

“Also, let’s keep the Potentials out of the loop on any of this. This is all just between us.”

Everyone nodded, then Dawn asked, “What are you gonna do, Buffy?”

Buffy shrugged. “I have a phone call to make, too.”

Spike snarled out loud, then silently said, “Don’t tell me. _Angel_.”

Buffy looked at him stubbornly. “Yes, Angel. He has connections. He knows people and … not-people. He might have some more contacts we could use.”

“I bring ya a bloody biblical demon, but that’s not good enough, is it?” Spike accused, eyes narrowed.

Buffy stood up and gave the rest of the group an unconvincing smile, then said out loud, “Could you excuse us? We’ll all regroup later after we all have more information.”

The rest of the gang headed up the stairs in wary silence, leaving Spike and Buffy alone in the basement. As soon as the door closed behind the last one, Buffy whirled on Spike. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Me, is it?” Spike snarled back jumping up to his feet. “What the hell is wrong with _you_? I’ve apologized to you about not calling all I can. You say you forgive me, but every bloody chance you get you gotta dig that dagger in and twist, dontcha?”

“Well, just how many women’s phone numbers do you have memorized, Spike? I mean, other than mine?” Buffy growled back, standing toe to toe with him in the center of the circle of chairs.

“Clearly, one is too bloody many, so what difference does it make if it’s one or a hundred!? Not shaggin’ them, am I? Didn’t make vows to them! What the bloody hell do you want from me, Slayer?” he argued, his ire rising even more.

“Speakin’ of which, noticed you didn’t mention that little … _exchange_ of ours to yer friends. Watched ya twirl that ring around your finger a thousand bloody times in the last three days, but not a word of it to them. What am I? Your dirty little secret again? Did that even mean anything to you? Because I meant every word,” Spike admonished her, his anger turning into hurt.

Buffy threw out her hands in frustration and turned away from him, crossing her arms over her chest and clamping her eyes closed to hold back all the emotions running through her.

“I meant it too,” she whispered when she finally found her voice, still facing away from him. “And I’m not screwing Angel either, or in love with him, but you’re still jealous of him. So, it’s okay for you to resent him, but not for me to resent Sam.”

Spike stepped around to face her again. “That’s a bit different, innit?” he argued. “I’ve never shagged Xena – not like it’s bloody Dru! Plus, Angel and me, lots o’ history there, yeah? It’s bloody complicated.”

Buffy snorted derisively and opened her eyes to look at him. “And you don’t think Sam and I have a complicated relationship? She’s married to my ex, but she’s crushin’ hard on you. You sacrificed yourself to save her life, so clearly there’s at least mutual respect between you, and that last kiss you gave her says it’s more than that. There’s a spark there, and you can’t deny it. Plus, she’s _nice_. I resent her because I can’t bring myself to hate her.”

“Quite the insult that, calling the girl ‘ _nice’_ ,” Spike observed, pursing his lips into a smirk. “Okay, fine, ya got me. I’m a bloody man. Got eyes in my head and a dick in my pants. Can’t help but appreciate a strong, beautiful woman when I see one. Might be a spark there, but it doesn’t mean my dick comes out, and it doesn’t mean I would vow my life to her.

“You’re the only one, Buffy. You’re the only one I love. You’re the only one that burns me to ashes when you touch me,” Spike reached his hand up slowly toward her face, stopping just before he touched her cheek, his hand hovering there as if held back by an invisible forcefield between them.

“You’re the only one that it hurts to part from. I want to be touching you always, feeling your skin against mine, feeling your soul surrounding mine.

“Only you, Buffy,” he finished in a hoarse whisper, his fingers still hovering just above her skin.

Buffy swallowed, and laid her hand over his, pressing his palm against her cheek. “I’ll tell them, Spike. You’re not my dirty little secret, you’re my husband, and I’ll tell them. I just need them focused on the big-bad right now – girls are dying out there! The mission has to come first.”

Spike pursed his lips thoughtfully and nodded. “And the Slayer always stands alone,” he whispered before pulling his hand away and walking out, his boots echoing forlornly in the empty basement.

The door shut above her as Spike left the basement, the ‘click’ like a bullet to her heart. Buffy dropped down into one of the chairs and buried her face in her hands as sobs ripped at her body. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she just put the mission aside for five minutes and do the right thing by the man she loved? It wasn’t like she didn’t know the right thing to do, she just couldn’t seem to find the right moment, couldn’t seem to get the words from her brain to her mouth.

“God, what is wrong with me?” she asked the empty room, but no answer was forthcoming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What IS wrong with Buffy? Shit! Why can’t she just TELL THEM? Is she purposely trying to hurt Spike? Is she still afraid of their reactions, of being judged by her friends, by Giles? Is she ashamed now of her impetuous actions in taking those vows? We’ll find out coming up in a couple of chapters… Hang in there! I think it might surprise you. 
> 
> Frasier's wife, Lilith, that Buffy refers to is from the TV show 'Cheers' and the spin-off 'Frasier'. On the show, she says of her namesake demon-goddess, "I make her look like a vacillating cream puff." 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	60. Pecker Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group comes up with a plan to fight The First, but Buffy still hasn’t told the group about the vows she and Spike shared, escalating the tension between them.
> 
> Note: The First in canon had a few somewhat nebulous powers. For example, sometimes it seemed able to read minds, while other times it couldn't. I'm going to set some actual rules for it. They will be defined in the story as we go. One 'power' is tested here in this chapter.

 

****

* * *

 

**Later that night / Early next morning.**

Buffy was lying curled on her side in the bed, facing the window, when Spike came in. It was late, around four a.m., but she’d not slept at all since laying down around midnight. She knew he’d been on the phone with Lilith and Willow for at least two hours. Buffy didn’t know if that was a good sign or not, honestly.

She closed her eyes and feigned sleep as he crawled into the bed and beneath the covers. She waited for him to curl around her, to pull her to him, to forgive her, but he didn’t touch her, not even a casual brush of a foot or hand in the dark. She bit her bottom lip to keep another sob back, her chest constricting painfully under the pressure. She’d fucked up again. The question that kept going through her mind, ‘ _What is wrong with me?_ ’ continued in a non-stop loop now. The only answer that came to her was that she was a horrible person, that she really was just a cold-hearted bitch, no matter how hard she tried not to be.

“Know yer awake,” Spike said to the ceiling after several minutes of silence.

Buffy sniffed and swallowed hard, but didn’t answer or move.

“It hurts, Buffy,” he said after another minute. “It hurts that you put them above me, after everything we’ve been through.”

“That’s not true. I don’t put them above you,” she argued, her words thick with tears.

“Doncha? If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…” he began, letting the rest go unsaid.

“I’m not trying to hurt you. God, I never want to hurt you, Spike,” Buffy vowed, finally turning over to face him. “It’s not them, I swear. It’s just …”

Spike waited in the dark, unmoving, unbreathing, his hands folded beneath his head to stop himself from reaching out for her, which is what he desperately wanted to do.

“There’s just something wrong with me,” Buffy said at last. “And I don’t know how to fix it. It’s like … this need to drive everyone away, everyone I love … like you. I … don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Spike felt tears leak from his eyes, but he still didn’t move, didn’t speak for a long while. Finally, he said, “Not sure how I’m supposed to feel about that, pet. You’re the one that said we have to trust each other, talk to each other before doing anything daft … but you just do whatever you please … _still_. And what yer doing now? It hurts.”

“I know,” Buffy whispered miserably.

Spike snorted softly and turned onto his side away from her. “Well, you just let me know when you want to pull the dagger out, yeah?”

“Spike…” Buffy pleaded, reaching a hand out to touch him.

“Don’t,” he told her firmly before her hand reached him. “Just don’t.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

**That afternoon:**

The group was down in the basement, all having completed their assignments to gather information and see what they could learn about The First, and see if they had any allies on the demonic side of the fence. Except for perfunctory monosyllables, Spike hadn’t spoken to Buffy since he got up a couple of hours before. Now he sat next to Willow on the other side of the circle from Buffy, rather than at her right hand like he had yesterday. The implied jab not lost on the Slayer.

Her eyes were swollen from crying and she felt exhausted from lack of sleep, but she’d found that apocalypses didn’t much care about her personal problems and wouldn’t wait for her to get her shit together.  She had to keep going, they had to get ready for whatever was coming from beneath to devour them.

“So, what do we know?” Buffy asked the group in general through Willow’s telepathy spell.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

A couple of hours later Buffy nodded and rubbed her tired eyes, feeling like they had a solid plan in place to deal with The First and its minions. Everyone seemed to know their jobs and appeared ready to carry them out, even Spike, although he continued communicating in the fewest, curtest words he could manage, unless he was insulting her or arguing with her, in which case he got more verbose.

“Okay,” Buffy said in conclusion, “I don’t think I need to say this but I will: No one else knows about this plan. We don’t talk about it aloud, we don’t write it down, we don’t whisper it, we don’t hint at it. Loose cannons sink ships.”

“Lips,” Spike corrected her tersely.

“Loose cannons sink lips,” Buffy corrected.

“Loose _lips_ sink bloody ships!”

“Actually,” Anya interjected. “I would think that loose cannons could sink ships … I mean, if you fire a loose cannon and it careens around the ship and crashes into the masts…”

Spike growled at the ex-demon, a low, dangerous rumble in his throat.

“Ok! Whatever!” Buffy interrupted, holding her hands up. “Alligators are in the swamp, it’s time to circle the wagons and keep all our cannons from rocking the boat and spilling the beans! Okay?”

Spike snorted and rolled his eyes. “Just how many metaphors d’ya reckon you can mix without spoiling the broth?”

“I can mix until the cows turn blue,” Buffy retorted haughtily. “So, are all our ducks on the same page?”   

Everyone nodded their understanding, despite her mixed, kneaded, and interbred metaphors. Spike, of course, added an eyeroll to his agreement, Giles included a sigh.

Buffy took a deep breath and nodded, too. “One last thing: They’re having an open house at the new Sunnydale High tonight at seven. I think we should go and check it out, see what we can find, if anything. Everyone but Dawn, that is.”

“But why?!” the girl whined. “It’s not like I’ll be alone there if you guys are going! What could possibly go wrong?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “If you have to ask that, then you haven’t been paying attention! You aren’t going. No one else has to go, but I’m going, so you guys can decide if you want to come.”

“I’ll just stay here with the bit,” Spike offered, standing up.

“No. She’ll be fine here with the others. I’d like you to come with me,” Buffy objected.

Spike’s brows shot up. “Ya just said we could decide. That for everyone but me, then?”

“I’d like to go look around in the basement. I’d prefer to have someone with me who can actually see in the dark since I don’t know what it will be like down there,” Buffy explained.

“There a sudden shortage of torches? All the evil creatures conspire to hoard them all so you lot don’t ‘ave any?” he wondered sarcastically.

“No, I have plenty of flashlights,” Buffy replied slowly, keeping her voice calm. “But they only light up so much area. I would appreciate it if you would join me … _please_.”

Spike snorted and rolled his eyes. “Well, since ya asked so nice and all,” he replied sarcastically, starting to turn and exit the protection of the magical circle.

“Well, well, well,” came a derisive voice from just behind Spike. “This looks like a twelve-step meeting for codependents. Demons Anonymous,” Angel mocked, walking slowly around the perimeter of the group on the outside of the salt circle. “Trying to kick the vamp habit, Buff? Looks like you still like them cold and hard, just the way you liked me.

“And Xander! Look at you all cuddled up with a demon. How the sanctimonious have fallen! Looks like Buffy’s bad habits are catching.”

“It’s not Angel,” Buffy informed them all, still speaking silently through Willow’s spell, as she rose and moved across the small space in an instant. She put a hand on Spike’s arm and gently pulled him back from the circle of salt, interspersing herself between The First and the vampire who had been its pawn.

“We’re gonna kick your ass,” Buffy thought, directing it pointedly at The First.

“I know you’ve got those girls here,” First-Angel continued. “That’s fine, you can have them … for now. Plenty more for my boys to hunt down still running around innocent and oh, so helpless in the world. I have to say, it’s super nice of you to have them all come right here to me, though. It’s like stabbing ducks in a drum!”

“What is this, a meeting of the Mangled Metaphor Club? It’s ‘shooting fish in a barrel’,” Xander offered sarcastically, speaking aloud.

“Ducks, fish … still be dead,” First-Angel assured him with a shrug.

Buffy stepped outside the circle of salt, careful to not disturb it, and unleashed a mental barrage of very un-lady-like epitaphs – raunchy enough to make a sailor upset the apple cart – in the apparition’s direction.

First-Angel stopped his slow meandering around the circle and stood in front of her, smiling ruefully. “And, when I’ve finished with them, it will be your turn, little lamb.”

Buffy smiled back at him. “Bring. It. On,” she challenged aloud. “You pathetic excuse for a demon. Until then, get the fuck out of my house.”

First-Angel suddenly morphed into the true image of The First, large and terrifying, like she’d seen in the cave of doom in Spike’s psyche, and lunged at her. She crossed her arms and stood perfectly still, glaring at it, not reacting at all. She could hear gasps from the Scoobies behind her, and even Giles, but she didn’t give the thing the satisfaction of even a jump in her heartrate. And then, in the next moment, it was gone.

“Holy shit,” Xander summarized for everyone aloud.

“I could not have put it better myself,” Giles agreed, also speaking out loud.

Buffy turned around and faced the group. “Well, we know one more thing now – it can’t read minds. No way would it not react to that.”

“I’m pretty sure I wish I hadn’t been able to read your mind during that,” Dawn observed. “Where did you learn to cuss like that? And what is a ‘knob jockey’, anyway?”

Spike pretended to scratch his nose, turning away from Dawn as he held in a laugh, then cleared his throat and gave Buffy a serious look. “Bit’s got a fair point, what _is_ a ‘knob jockey’? And ... did you call him a ‘fuck wit’? And … ‘jizz breath’?”

Buffy shrugged, looking affronted. “What, do you think you have the market cornered on fun insults? I can’t know any? I know plenty. I didn’t even get to the really good ones.”

“I found ‘shit licker’ to be particularly graphic and visually unpleasant,” Anya offered sincerely.

“Thank you,” Buffy replied as everyone else stood up.

“So … who _does_ want to go to see the new school?” she asked before they all went their separate ways, purposely avoiding answering Dawn’s question. Everyone’s hand went up except for Spike’s, including Dawn’s.

Buffy sighed and nodded. “Well, if we’re all going, maybe we should bring Dawn and the other girls. I don’t know what The First might appear to them as. I don’t want them frightened … or any more frightened than they already are. Be easier to fight off some Bringers than defend against any mental games The First could play with them.”

“Yay!” Dawn cheered. “Josh Berlant is supposed to be there tonight. He’s soooo cute!”

“Oh, God help me,” Buffy muttered, heading for the stairs.

“I believe this is called ‘karma’,” Giles offered, not unsympathetically. “She is a teenage girl. I do seem to recall some trying times, most of which revolved around cute boys, with another teenage girl in my charge some few years ago.”

“You are a bottomless mountain of sunshine and roses,” Buffy informed him dourly.

“Indeed. Well better a mixed metaphor than a ‘pecker head’,” Giles replied judiciously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When will Buffy come clean and pull the dagger out of Spike’s back? What will they find at the high school? How many metaphors can you mix before it quacks like a duck? What is their plan of attack against The First? (Hint: We won't know until MUCH later. Just don't forget -- they have a plan.)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	61. School Harder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group heads over to check out the new Sunnydale High. What will they find waiting for them there?

* * *

 

The whole group came into the main entrance of the new Sunnydale High as a group, with Kennedy, Molly, and Annabelle, the three Potentials that Giles had brought back with him when he’d returned from England, in tow.

“They’re having refreshments in the cafeteria, can I just go there?” Dawn asked as they entered.

“Let me guess, the cute boy is somehow involved in the refreshments?” Buffy surmised.

Dawn pouted. “I didn’t say that …”

Buffy rolled her eyes, she was about to give her permission to go ahead, along with some stern warnings, when a tall, well-built black man in a nice suit walked up to the group. He had handsome features, and a shaved pate that shined a bit in the bright lights of the new school. His lack of hair brought attention to the gold, hoop earrings he wore, one in each ear. He also had a thin goatee, immaculately trimmed, which encircled a straight-toothed smile that seemed to be borne more from habit than from genuine happiness. Somehow the smile never seemed to reach his dark eyes, which looked as if they’d seen more sorrow than someone of his relatively young age should.

“Hi, I’m Principal Wood,” he introduced himself in a smooth baritone voice, starting with Buffy, who was nearest to him, extending his hand.

Buffy grasped his hand to shake it, making the large man wince slightly. “Buffy Summers,” she introduced herself. “And friends,” she added, waving a hand at the assembled group. Buffy guessed the man was in his late twenties or early thirties. He was certainly much younger and more hip than any of the principals she’d ever known before.

The principal narrowed his eyes in thought a moment, not releasing her hand. “I know that name. You graduated from the old school, didn’t you?”

Buffy pulled her hand back out of his with some difficulty as the man seemed set on not letting go. “Yeah, how did you know that?”

Mr. Wood smiled pleasantly. “Permanent records,” he informed her.

“I thought that was a myth,” Buffy replied.

The principal shrugged. “Like … vampires?” he asked. “And unicorns?”

Buffy cleared her throat. “Yeah, like those,” she agreed, eying him suspiciously, then turned and began introducing everyone to him.

Finally, she got to Spike, who was moping along slowly, hands in the pockets of his duster, bringing up the rear, not particularly pleased to be here in the first place.  

“And this is my …” Buffy’s mind froze for what seemed an epoch or three, but was actually only a moment, as words and thoughts bounced around in her brain.

My what? Her eyes met Spike’s in that moment and she knew the right thing to do.

“… _husband_ , Spike,” she finished.

Spike had already started extending his hand toward the bigger man when the words hit him. It was all he could do to keep from falling over from the blow. His eyes met hers in that moment and the anger and hurt that had been rolling around inside him for days exploded into a writhing ball of confusion in his belly.

He felt blind-sided by the words, knocked on his ass emotionally. When they had first exchanged the vows, he thought she’d be giddily announcing it to everyone the moment she saw them, but that hadn’t happened. Then he thought she’d tell them as a group, with him at her side, but that didn’t happen either. Now she was casually tossing it out in front of friends and strangers alike almost as an afterthought. It spun his head and dug the dagger in even deeper in his heart. What the bloody fuck was she playin’ at?   

Then the principal was shaking his hand, drawing Spike’s attention away from Buffy and the emotions and questions that bounced around inside his skull. Spike took a breath and refocused, shoving his still-aching feelings down and putting on a mask of bravado to hide them – his ‘go-to’ strategy when he was feeling emotionally off-balance.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. … Summers, is it?” the man was saying a little hesitantly, drawing Spike out of his momentary introspection.

Behind Buffy there was a chorus of gasps and exclamations from her friends, with all the usual questions of ‘huh, what, where, when, why, and how’ being bandied about. Plus, an emphatic, ‘Oh, dear Lord,’ from Giles.

The principal looked momentarily distracted by the commotion, but then politely asked Spike, “Did you attend Sunnydale High, too?” which he had asked everyone as Buffy introduced them.

Spike smirked at him, pulling his hand from the bigger man’s grip. “Been known to prowl these halls a time or two,” he answered vaguely. “Met my … wife here, as a matter-of-fact.” That felt strange coming off his tongue. His _wife_. _His_ wife. _Buffy Summers, his wife_.

“Wow,” the principal remarked, seeming sincerely impressed, as he stepped back and prepared to take his leave. “So great to have so many alumni come by tonight. I hope you really like the new school. Maybe I’ll see you again before the night is over.”

As Principal Wood walked away, Buffy grabbed Spike’s hand in hers and turned to face her friends.

“We snuck out. We eloped,” she announced, in answer to their questions. “A couple of days ago … okay, uhhh … four days ago, actually,” she admitted.

“I _knew_ you weren’t ‘napping’ all that time!” Dawn announced brightly. “It was way too quiet up there! Where did you go?”

“Las Vegas,” Buffy answered at the same time Spike said, “Reno.”

“Ummm … Reno first, then honeymooned in Las Vegas … a short ... quickie-moon, really,” she explained nervously.

“Oh, dear Lord,” Giles moaned, shaking his head in dismay.

“How … is this even possible? You’re a vam—” Xander’s exclamation was cut off by a gasp as Willow nudged him hard with her elbow before he could finish the last word.  “You’re not even a resident of … _anywhere_! You’re not even _alive_!” he hissed, rubbing the spot where the witch had jabbed him.

“Fake ids are as easy to get as frog’s teeth,” Anya offered, shrugging. “After all, I had to do the same thing.”

“Mr. Summers, is it?” Giles asked next, with something between a smirk and a grimace on his face. “Gave up your maiden name of ‘The Bloody’, then? Or are we hyphenating?”

Spike sniffed and stood up straighter. “’Spike Summers’ has a ring to it, dontcha think? Twenty-first century renaissance man, aren’t I? Not one o’ those insecure, misogynistic men with pencil dicks Anya was prattling on about the other day. Secure enough in my virility t’ take my wife’s name. Bloody progressive of me, if I do say so.”

“Indeed …” Giles sighed, taking his glasses off and scrubbing them hard enough to turn the glass to diamonds with his handkerchief.

“Hey! Why didn’t you do that?” Anya demanded of Xander, smacking him in the chest. “Why did I have to change my name instead of you changing yours?”

Xander opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, thinking better of whatever he was going to say. “I just never thought of it. Call me an old-fashioned, romantic fool,” he said after a moment.

Anya ‘ _hmphed’_ , crossing her arms over her chest, not looking pleased.

“Who goes out in the middle of the night to get you ice cream,” Xander reminded her.

Anya rolled her eyes and sighed. “Okay, I guess…” she moaned.

Xander glared at Spike, but Spike just smirked, clearly pleased with putting Xander in a sticky situation.

“I’m so happy for you guys!” Dawn tittered, hopping up and down on her toes. In the next moment she threw herself at Mr. and Mrs. Summers, wrapping an arm around each of them. “This is the best news ever!

“I’m also so mad at you! How could you elope and not invite anyone!?” she chastised them in the next minute.

“That’s kinda what eloping is,” Buffy informed her. “On the plus side: no bridesmaid dresses.”

The three Potentials stood back a few feet watching the exchange as the Scoobies continued firing questions at the newlyweds.

“Isn’t Spike a vampire?” Kennedy, who, although Giles had brought her back with the other two from England, was actually American, asked Molly.

“Supposedly a vampire wif a soul,” the other girl answered in a thick, working-class Londoner’s accent, crinkling her nose up as if she didn’t quite believe it.

“Is that even a thing?” Kennedy wondered, furrowing her brow.

“I dunno,” Molly said, shaking her head. “My Watcher never mentioned it, did he?”

“Should a Slayer actually marry a vampire?” Annabelle asked in a softer English accent than Molly had. “I mean … isn’t she supposed to, well, you know, _slay_ them?”

Molly sighed and shrugged. “It’s bloody confusing. Reckon ‘es pretty ‘ot, though.”

“I wonder if she takes her stake to bed,” Kennedy posited. “That would be kinky.”

“And right dangerous,” Molly added.

“Kinky without dangerous is just … vanilla,” Kennedy retorted.

“I quite like vanilla,” Annabelle offered.

“Then I reckon you shouldn’t marry a vampire,” Molly advised.

Kennedy and Annabelle nodded in agreement.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

After checking out the cafeteria and the cute boy, who Spike thought looked like a wanker, but seemed harmless enough, Buffy and Spike left Dawn, and the three Potentials, there with strict instructions to not leave that room until they returned.  There were quite a few people at the school, and lots of them gathered around the refreshments, it seemed unlikely that even the Bringers would attack in such a public way. Even so, the rest of the Scoobies, and Giles, wouldn’t be too far away, checking out the rest of the school, while Spike and Buffy went down into the basement to look around.

Spike pushed open the door that proclaimed itself to be: ‘Basement access – Authorized Personnel Only’ and stepped onto a dimly-lit staircase leading down. Buffy followed closely and silently as they made their way into the deep recesses of the new school. Spike could feel the Hellmouth trembling off his skin, prickling and tugging at his demon even more strongly here than above.

There was just enough light to see by, so Buffy left her flashlight in her pocket. She did, however, grasp her stake tightly in her hand, like a child clutching a teddy bear, a reassuring and comforting companion in the semi-darkness, as she followed Spike down the stairs. She could feel the malevolent power tingling down her spine also, a clear warning to her Slayer senses to beware.

Spike stopped at the bottom of the stairs and listened, but all he could hear was Buffy’s shallow breathing and thumping heart behind him. He sniffed carefully, searching for any sign of Bringers or other nasties, but only the fading scent of humans wafted back to him.

“Don’t think anything’s here,” he told her, keeping his voice low.

“So, why are you whispering?” she wondered, also whispering.

“Cos I’m on the verge of killing you, and if I raise my voice I’ll lose the last thread o’ control I ‘ave,” he growled back, grabbing her empty hand and tugging her roughly forward, off the stairs and into the hallway beyond.

He strode through the dimly lit, labyrinth-like basement, dragging Buffy in his wake with an iron grip on her hand. They walked until he thought they were far enough away from the entrance to not be heard from above. He stopped then and swung her around until her back hit the nearest wall, drawing a gasp of expelled breath from her and knocking the stake from her hand, which landed on the floor at her feet.

“What the bloody hell do you mean doing that, Slayer?!” he growled at her, stalking up close enough for her to stake him if she wanted to pick her weapon back up.

“What? I thought you’d be happy!” Buffy shot back. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to tell everyone?!”

“Not like that! Those vows meant something to me – they meant the bloody world! They weren’t just meaningless twattle in the dark. You tossed it out like you were discussin’ the bloody weather!” Spike asserted, balling his hands into fists at his side, his anger growing with each passing moment. “What am I? A bloody puppet on your string? You just enjoy jerking me around, that it? Gonna see if you can make me dance a bloody jig next?! Or stand on my head? I know I’m love’s bitch, but I do have my limits, Slayer.”

“No … no, Spike! They mean the world to me, too! I love you. I swear! I … it just seemed like the right thing to do in the moment,” Buffy explained.

“Bollocks!” Spike growled at her, unable to rein in his hurt and anger now that he’d let it out. “What is this, a bloody test of my new soul? That it, Slayer? Trying to see just how far you can push me? Cos, gotta say, you’re on the bleedin’ edge of my patience.”

“No!” Buffy asserted. “I swear … I just …”

Spike roared in frustration and turned away from her, pounding a fist against his head, all the hurt from the last few days exploding in a riot of anger inside him. “Do you know what I want t’ do to you right now? I want to hurt you. I want you to scream. I want you to beg me to forgive you and then I want to hurt you some more. Want to rip your bloody heart out with my bare hands like you keep doing to mine!

“Is that what you want to hear, you bloody bitch?!” Spike snarled at her, turning back around to face her, his hands still clenched into fists.

“Then do it!” Buffy screamed back at him, her eyes suddenly wild with fury, matching his. “DO IT! HURT ME!”

She stepped forward and shoved him hard, both of her hands on his shoulders, making him take two steps back to keep his balance. “I’m right here, you fucking vampire! HURT ME!!” she demanded, following him, preparing to shove him again.

Spike grabbed her by her upper-arms and forcibly lifted her up completely off her feet, slamming her back against the wall again, and cracking her head on the hard blocks.

“What the bloody fuck is wrong with you, Slayer?” he roared at her, still holding her like a doll with her feet several inches off the floor.

“I need … the pain. You said so … you said I use it … I need it,” she stammered, her head spinning slightly from the blow. “So just do it … hurt me.”

“This isn’t the same and you know it!” he contended angrily. “You want me to _punish_ you,” he realized, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he studied her. “Not for pleasure, not for power … for what?”

“I’m a terrible person … a bitch, you just said so. Just do it, Spike. Please,” she begged as tears started to fall from her eyes and run in hot rivers down her cheeks.

Spike’s brows furrowed, his penetrating blue gaze trying to see into her, beyond her words, into her heart, trying to suss this out. As he watched, she seemed to shrink into herself, to deflate or implode, suddenly becoming a fragile girl rather than the bloody bitch he’d just accused her of being.

“Why do you need to be hurt?” he asked more softly, his anger fading into confusion and concern.

Buffy closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side, tears falling faster now. “Bad person … I’m a bad, bad person,” she chanted softly.

“Buffy … tell me. What did you do?” Spike asked, his voice gentle now as he set her back onto her feet.

“Hurt you … isn’t that enough?” she contended, trying desperately to stop crying.

Spike curled his tongue against his teeth, studying her carefully, then shook his head. “Ya hurt me so I’d hurt you, but that’s not what this is about, is it? Tell me, Buffy. What did you do?”

As soon as his hands released her, Buffy’s knees gave way and she sunk down into the dirt, sobbing uncontrollably.

“I had to do it. I had to, Spike. I just … I didn’t think it would hurt so much,” she cried as sobs shook her body. “I kept ignoring it, telling myself I had no choice – and I didn’t! I swear I didn’t! But ... it just keeps coming back. I can’t get it to stop haunting me.”

“What did ya do, Buffy?”

“I … killed … him,” she whispered between sobs. “It was me … I did it.”

Spike crouched down beside her, putting a hand on her back. “Killed what?”

“Not what … _who_ ,” she stammered, not looking up at him.

“Tell me … who?” Spike insisted.

Buffy shook her head violently from side to side as if to stop the words from coming out, but it didn’t help, they spilled out of her in a wave of shame and guilt. “Warren … it was me. I killed him.”

Spike dropped down onto his ass as if physically struck, his eyes wide with surprise. “Buffy …” Spike breathed, the single word relating the depth of his shock and alarm, before recovering himself and pulling her into his arms.

“Don’t you see, now? Spike, please … please hurt me. Punish me. I’m a bad person. I’m a murderer. I’m … oh, God, I’m just like Faith. Please …” she cried against him, sobs trembling through her suddenly fragile body.

“Oh, Buffy, luv,” Spike whispered, rocking her in his arms. “He was a monster, not a man,” he tried to assure her.

“Then why do I feel so guilty and ashamed? Why won’t it stop hurting? Why does it just keep getting worse?” she demanded, clinging to him like a life raft in a churning sea.

Spike smoothed a hand down over her hair time and again, trying to comfort her. “Because you’re a good person, with a good soul,” Spike murmured.

“I’m really not,” Buffy cried against him. “Haven’t you figured that out by now? Haven’t I hurt you enough for you to see?”

“Buffy, my love,” Spike whispered, his accent softening ever so slightly as he hugged her against his chest fiercely. “Tell me what happened.”

Buffy sniffed and took some deep, hiccupping breaths, trying to calm down and Spike relaxed his hold on her slightly, but didn’t let her go, holding her like a child in his lap on the floor.

“Did Xander tell you what he said … when he shot me? Before he shot me?” she asked, her voice hoarse and rough.

“Uhhh… honestly don’t remember, luv,” Spike admitted. “That day was … _is_ a bit of a blur.”

“You’d remember if he’d told you,” Buffy assured him dourly, valiantly sniffing back her tears, trying to get some control back.

“Warren said I wouldn’t get away with what I did to him. Then he … he threatened Dawn. Said he would take her and teach her to obey him like a good little whore should,” Buffy relayed, her voice growing harder and angrier with each word. “He said he wanted me to know that before he killed me.” Buffy’s chin quivered and her voice broke, remembering. “Then he shot me.”

Buffy swallowed, steeling her emotions, grasping onto anger and pushing down her fear and shame and guilt. “He threatened my sister,” she ground out angrily. “I just couldn’t get that vision out of my mind. I tried to ignore it … I … I focused on finding you and had nearly put it out of my mind, but then I got the letter.”

Buffy went silent then, seeming to become lost in her own mind, in her thoughts, in the past. Finally, Spike prompted, “What letter, luv?”

Buffy looked up sharply, as if she’d forgotten he was there, that she was in his arms, and shook her head to clear it. “Jonathan … the little one … from the Trio. You remember him?”

Spike furrowed his brows. “Magic bone boy?”

Buffy nodded. “He … he helped bail Warren out – him and the other one … Tucker’s brother – but then he realized he’d made a mistake. He said he was sorry that he couldn’t have warned me sooner, but he couldn’t get away from Warren in time. He felt like he had to tell me what Warren said though … what he threatened to do.

“When they picked Warren up, the sick bastard had bragged to them about what he had planned. He … he told them that I would get off easy, he was just going to kill me. Said I was ‘beyond taming’, but that Dawn …” Buffy paused again, clamping her eyes closed, the words stuck in her throat, bitter and barbed.

She swallowed hard and finally blinked her shimmering eyes open, looking back up at Spike. “Warren bragged to Jonathan that he’d take Dawn as ‘punitive damages’ and she’d pay for my crimes. He’d tame her, break her, hurt her, use her. He’d … make her his pet whore, teach her to say nothing but ‘Yes, Sir,’ make her kneel and obey and scream, and …” Buffy shook her head, unable to force more words out.

A low, rumbling growl vibrated Spike’s chest, filling the dark with an ominous threat of mayhem and destruction. “I got the picture, luv,” he assured her in a low, dangerous voice. “Talked to him a bit before I slit his tongue. He was a sick, twisted, sadistic son-of-a-bitch. And I should bloody know.”

“Jonathan said he’d done it before. You remember Katrina … the girl I thought I’d killed that night in the cemetery?”

Spike nodded.

“Jonathan said Warren put her under some kind of spell – a magical roofie – it wore off or something, though, and he ended up killing her and framing me for it.

“I tried to tell myself that Warren was in jail. That he couldn’t hurt anyone … but, I kept having nightmares. I was almost afraid to go to sleep. What if he got out? He got out before! He could come back … and … Spike, I couldn’t stop worrying, it was eating me alive. He’d done this before – not only hurt a girl, but _killed_ her. I just … I couldn’t take the chance. I had to do something. I had to protect Dawn.”

“Buffy, you should’ve told—” Spike began, but stopped abruptly, realizing his mistake.

“Told? Told who? TOLD _YOU_?!” she screamed at him, pulling free from his grasp and scrambling up to her feet to stand over him. “YOU WERE FUCKING GONE! YOU LEFT ME ALONE!”

Spike’s jaw clenched, muscles bulging in his cheeks as he dropped his head into his hands, ashamed and angry at himself.

Buffy began to pace across the dirt floor, her arms wrapped around her stomach to try and hold herself together. “I kept track of him, called the jail, got updates. I kept thinking he’d die from … his injuries.”

“From what I did,” Spike muttered, his head still resting disconsolately in his hands as he sat on the ground at Buffy’s feet.

“He was in intensive care for a while. All those cuts and gouges … they got infected, he got blood poisoning. I thought he was gonna die – I _prayed_ he would die – but then he started to improve,” she related, still pacing back and forth in front of Spike. “They transferred him to the jail, into the infirmary there, still sick but expected to recover, out of imminent danger.” Buffy snorted. “Or so he thought, anyway.

“I knew I couldn’t wait any longer, couldn’t pray any more for him to just die. I had to _do_ _something_. They use contract nurses … they change up a lot, don’t want the prisoners to get too cozy with any of them. I stole some credentials and walked right in the front gates,” she related matter-of-factly.

Buffy stopped pacing suddenly and stood in front of Spike, unwrapping her arms from her torso and holding her hands out in front of her, palms up.  She looked down at her hands, horrified, as if blood dripped from them, her eyes wide and appalled.

“I strangled him with my bare hands,” she whispered barely loud enough for even Spike to hear.

Spike looked up at her then. She seemed so far away, so small, so lost in that moment that he wasn’t sure he could ever reach her ever again. He stood up and grasped her hands firmly, shaking her slightly, pulling her from her trance. Her horror-filled eyes slowly tracked up to meet his, her shame and guilt clear in their green depths.

“Buffy, luv, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I should’ve … should’ve finished what I started, not you,” he murmured, blinking the dampness back that sprang suddenly to his eyes.

Buffy seemed to not hear him as she continued her story, almost in a daze. “I told him I hoped he liked it up the ass, cos I was sending him to hell, where he could kneel and obey and scream for all the demons I sent there before him. I was so angry – Spike, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so … so full of hatred before. I squeezed harder … harder … and then I felt that bone break … it’s so small, just a little ‘pop’ beneath my fingers. Do you know that feeling, Spike?” she asked, still looking at him with confused, astonished eyes.

“Yes … I know that feeling, Buffy,” he answered softly, gripping her hands tighter, holding on to her lest she be washed away completely.

“It’s so small. Such a thin line between life and death,” she murmured, not looking away from him.

Spike nodded. “Yes, pet … I know,” he agreed, pulling her into a tight hug. “I know.”

“I killed him,” she muttered against his chest.

“You protected Dawn,” Spike argued.

“How do you live with it, Spike?” she asked dolefully, leaning against him heavily, her body suddenly feeling utterly exhausted.

“I got forgiven,” Spike replied softly.

“By God?”

Spike snorted humorlessly. “No, luv, by the only person who really matters. By you.”

Buffy nodded slowly against his chest, her chin quivering trying to hold back her emotions. “Do you forgive me?”

“I do, Buffy. You are forgiven,” he assured her.

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She wanted to cry, but didn’t seem to have any tears left. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Spike. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry … for everything.”

“I know, pet. I forgive you for that, too,” he pledged, still holding her in a tight hug.

Buffy nodded solemnly against his chest. “I might need you to tell me again … later,” she admitted.

Spike dropped a soft kiss atop her head. “I’ll tell you every day, as much as ya need, Buffy. I forgive you. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’m so sorry, Spike,” she whispered against his chest. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know, luv,” he assured her again, holding her tight.

She’d felt completely justified when she’d made the plan to kill Warren. She’d felt relieved when she felt the life drain from his body. But little by little the guilt and shame had crept in. No matter how much she told herself that he was just another monster, her soul, like Spike’s, judged her, burning her with shame and guilt that she seemed powerless to escape. She couldn’t forgive herself and she was too ashamed to tell anyone, even Spike.

Buffy sniffed again, and took a few more deep breaths, taking comfort in the strength of Spike’s arms, in the depth of his love, in the small light of forgiveness that he shone into her tortured soul. It was like a breath of fresh, clean air after weeks of breathing nothing but acrid, bitter smoke from the fires of hell. He always seemed to be able to reach into her soul and shine a loving light in the darkness that threatened to overwhelm her. She didn’t know how he did it, but she needed his light, his love, now perhaps more than she had when she’d first come back from heaven, and he gave it freely.

He forgave her. She drew in a long, shuddering breath and let it out slowly, relief flooding her heart. He forgave her. They stood in silence in each other’s arms for several minutes, Buffy gratefully accepting the comfort he gave her so freely, so willingly, so completely. _He forgave her._

“Can I ask you something else?” she wondered after several minutes of letting her heart soak in that small bit of peace and solace in his arms.

“Anything, luv,” he assured her.

“Why is there a dirt floor in a finished basement?”

Buffy pulled back out of his arms gently and looked down at the floor, kicking at it with her boots. “Does that seem right to you?”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

The rest of the group had been waiting for Buffy and Spike in the cafeteria, having finished their perusal of the school long ago.  They now all stood in the room with the dirt floor, as confused as Buffy as to why it would be here when all the rest of the basement was poured concrete floors.

“This definitely wasn’t on the specs,” Xander assured her, having been one of the contractors who worked on the school. “And I’m sure it wasn’t like this when the inspectors came through, or it wouldn’t have passed.”

“I believe you may have found an anomaly that bears looking into,” Giles agreed. “In addition to the library, which is simply unacceptable.”

“What’s wrong in the library? Hyena people? Invisible students?” Buffy wondered.

“No books!” Giles announced angrily. “It’s all computers! It is a travesty, honestly! Something really must be done about it.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed. “Well, just think of all the books that won’t lose their lives when this place implodes, or, you know falls into the gates of hell,” Buffy pointed out. “Cos, you just know that’s gonna happen.”

“Indeed,” Giles agreed dourly. “So, what do you propose to do about this evil dirt, then?”

“Keep an eye on it,” Buffy replied, looking at Willow. “Do we still have any of those cameras the nerds planted around the house?”

Willow nodded, her face bright with understanding. “Yup! I’m on it,” she assured Buffy. “I mean … you’ll come back with me to break in and install them, right? Cos, honestly? Kinda spooky down here and I’m not great with the breaking and entering. Well, the entering I could handle, it’s the breaking part.”

“Have no fear, I’m great at breaking stuff,” Buffy replied grimly, giving Spike a meaningful look.

His gaze softened and he shook his head, refuting her. She replied with a sad smile, grateful for his forgiveness, but not yet convinced that she deserved it.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Miss…es Summers,” Principal Wood greeted her as the group made their way toward the front doors of the school a few minutes later. “How do you like it?”

Buffy gave him a fake smile. “Just like old times; feels almost like I never left,” she told him.

“That’s wonderful,” he replied, seeming pleased. “I did want to let you know, we have a community outreach program, basically looking for parents…”

“Not a parent! No parenting skills here! I’m, at best, a very lame sister of a teenager who doesn’t even go to this school,” Buffy pointed out quickly.

“Oh, well … that doesn’t really matter,” the principal assured her. “I was just thinking that, based on your file, that you may be able to help guide some of our more troubled students onto a better path.”

“What makes you think I found a better path than my file suggests?” Buffy wondered.

“Well, you’re not in jail,” Mr. Wood noted. “And your hair and clothes seem relatively clean.”

Buffy frowned, wondering deep down if she _should_ be in jail, as she looked down at her jeans, and brushed off some dirt. “Relatively,” she agreed, looking back up at him.

“I mean, there’s really very little pay involved, and it would only be a couple of days a week. But we do have a lot of troubled kids who could really use some guidance. I’m just looking for some good people to help keep this place from imploding,” he explained.

Buffy snorted. “Good luck with that,” she muttered. Buffy thought about the ‘evil dirt’ in the basement and made a quick decision, saying more loudly, “Sure, I’ll do it.”

“You will?” he asked, surprised. “You did hear the part about the money, right?”

“I have another job, so my hours might be wonky,” Buffy told him. “But, if you need help keeping an eye on this place … I’m your girl.”

“Great! Can you come by tomorrow and I’ll get you started?” the principal asked.

“I’ll be here … I’m kind of a rise at the crack of noon girl, is that a problem?” Buffy wondered.

Principal Wood opened his mouth, then closed it again, shaking his head. “Be fine, most students don’t show up until then, anyway.”

“Great,” Buffy agreed, shaking the large man’s proffered hand to seal the deal.

Principal Wood turned to Spike then and extended his hand to him, as well. “Thanks for this. I really appreciate it.”

Spike shook the man’s hand and nodded. “Buffy’s all about the welfare of others,” he assured the principal, his eyes flicking to Buffy and catching her gaze meaningfully. She dropped her gaze away from his as a stab of guilt stung her heart.

“Were you in the labs? Your hands are cold. I think the thermostats in those rooms are malfunctioning,” the large man commented.

Spike looked back at the principal and pulled his hand away, smirking. “Just naturally cool,” he remarked.

“That must be why the coat,” the principal surmised. “Don’t often see that here so early in the autumn. It’s nice, where’d you get it? It looks … comfortable.”

Spike shrugged, as if settling his duster on his shoulders. “New York … a while back.”

The big man nodded thoughtfully, then offered, “Oh, well, you know what they say, ‘cold hands, warm heart’.”

Xander snorted. “Yeah, but they don’t say it about Spike.”

Spike tilted his head toward Xander, still looking at the principal. “Brothers-in-law! What are ya gonna do? Never happy, are they?”

“Bb-b-brother-in-law!?” Xander stammered, choking.

“C’mon, mate,” Spike invited, wrapping an arm around Xander’s neck affably, half-dragging the bigger man toward the door. “Got a nice beer waiting at home t’ celebrate. None o’ that piss you yanks call beer, either. A proper beer. Knew you’d want t’ welcome me to the family with a nice toast and many well wishes, yeah?”

Giles sighed as the group followed Spike and Xander out of the school. “He will be impossible to live with now, _Mrs_. Summers, you do realize that?” he asked Buffy.

“Was he not impossible to live with before?” she wondered, giving her ex-Watcher a sidelong glance.

“Fair point,” Giles agreed with a conciliatory tilt of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh! Buffy killed a human! Will Spike’s forgiveness be enough for her to live with the guilt and shame of it? And what do you make of Principal Wood? Does he already know who Spike is? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	62. I've Got You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike makes sure Buffy gets the support she needs to deal with her guilt.

****

* * *

 

**Later that night.**

After a perfunctory knock, Buffy’s door opened before she answered or acknowledged the sound.

“May I come in?” Giles asked from outside, keeping back from the small opening, just in case Spike had been wrong about her state of déshabillé.

Buffy sighed and dragged herself to a seated position on the edge of the bed. She had just collapsed when they got home from the open house at the new high school, and was still fully dressed, but emotionally drained.

“Don’t tell me, Spike sent you up here,” she said in reply. “Yes … come in.”

Giles came in and closed the door behind him. “He said you wanted to see me,” the ex-Watcher explained.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Is that all he said?”

“Well, not precisely, but he seemed rather set on us having a talk,” Giles admitted, pulling a chair up near where she sat on the bed. “He felt that you had something troubling you that I might be able to help with.”

Buffy dropped her forehead into her hands, resting her elbows on her knees. She was exhausted, and she really didn’t want to have this conversation with Giles. Not now. Not ever.  Spike, apparently, had other ideas.

“You know how you said I could never disappoint you?” Buffy began, not looking up.

“Yes,” he answered cautiously.

“You might need to reconsider that position,” she advised.

“Oh?” Giles prompted warily. “Is this about you marrying Spike?”

“Does that disappoint you?” Buffy wondered, looking up at him.

Giles shrugged slightly, removing his glasses and looking down at them, but forgetting to actually polish them. “It doesn’t fill me with overwhelming joy,” he admitted. “You deserve better, Buffy. You deserve…”

“Normal?” Buffy suggested. “Yeah, well, my bus passed Normal-town a few hundred demons ago. I love him, Giles. He loves me. He actually sticks around when I do stupid shit instead of running off like a sane person.  He just … gets me! I know that sounds lame and cliché’ but it’s true. He keeps my soul from … turning to stone.”

Giles put his glasses back on and looked back up to meet her eyes. “I don’t believe your soul is in danger of turning to stone,” he assured her.

“You haven’t seen my soul … and you might change your mind when I tell you the real reason he sent you up here,” she informed him.

“You remember when Warren got killed in prison? And you said I shouldn’t be happy about it?”

“Yes, I recall that.”

Buffy forced her eyes to meet his and hold his gaze. “He didn’t just die, and it wasn’t another inmate who killed him. It was me,” she admitted pointblank.

“I … I see,” Giles stammered, breaking eye contact as he removed his glasses again, and this time remembering to polish them with his handkerchief. “And was there a particular reason you felt the need to do that?”

“I was just feeling a real valley-girl vibe that day. Dawn had eaten all the Cheerios, so I didn’t get my morning dose of cheery-goodness. Thought strangling Warren would do the trick,” she shot back sarcastically.

“Ah, mockery. I recognize that as one of your many defenses,” he observed, replacing his glasses and looking back up at her. “What happened?”

“What difference does it make? I killed a human! How can you just sit there and ask me what happened?” Buffy demanded as she stood up and began pacing back and forth in the small space. “I killed someone!”

“Yes, I heard that. But, surely, there must’ve been a reason … apart from lack of circular breakfast cereal,” Giles insisted.

“Does it matter?” Buffy wondered, stopping to look at him.

“Of course, it does. How could it not?”

“Faith had a reason to kill that scientist guy – a really good reason in her mind. That didn’t make it right,” Buffy pointed out.

“Faith killed a human to assist the Mayor’s ascension into an Old One. Did you kill Warren so that a demon could rise?”

“No, of course not,” Buffy shot back.

“So, I fail to see the relevancy of that analogy. You know as well as I that Faith has many issues, Buffy, that was simply one of a multitude of sins,” Giles argued.

“So, you think this is my only sin? How about screwing a vampire – which now makes _two_ vampires I’ve been in love with and _fucked_ – and marrying Spike? That doesn’t count as a sin in the big Slayer handbook?” she challenged, angry and frustrated, still feeling ashamed and guilty, needing to be punished for what she’d done.

“Buffy, you know precisely what I mean about Faith, please do not pretend that your choices and hers are the least bit comparable,” Giles rebuked her. “As to your relationships, while they are … less than ideal in my mind, they are not doing harm to the world or anyone in it … apart, perhaps, from yourself.”

“Oh, Angelus didn’t do any harm to anyone else?” Buffy shot back. “Certainly, not you or Miss Calendar or Kendra.”

Giles’ face froze in a mask of stone, appearing suddenly just as impenetrable. “Drusilla killed Kendra,” he replied curtly.

“With Angelus’ help – keeping me away,” Buffy pointed out.

Giles once again removed his glasses and rubbed wearily at his eyes. He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger to try and forestall the headache beginning there before speaking again. “How many times must we have this conversation, Buffy? What Angelus did was not your fault. You could not have known what would happen. And when it came down to it, you chose saving the world over him.”

Giles looked back up at her then, his eyes haunted, but resolute. “You and I both know that you are not responsible for his sins,” he stated in no uncertain terms. “And, I believe you are avoiding the question here. Diversion, I recall, is another of your many layers of defense. Please do just tell me the circumstances regarding Warren.”

Buffy sighed and sat down heavily on the bed facing Giles and began to relay her story to him as she’d done Spike earlier. She left out a couple of things, like how it felt when his hyoid bone broke beneath her grip and her jibe about him kneeling for demons in hell. When she got to the part about Jonathan’s letter, she found her voice had deserted her under the scrutiny of her mentor. Unable to bring the words up, she got up and went to her dresser and began digging through the clothes toward the back of the bottom drawer. 

Giles watched her in silence, trying to take in and process all that she’d said so far. He began to worry that her association with Spike had affected her judgement. Certainly, Warren was a despicable man, but her reaction seemed a bit drastic. After all, the man had been in custody with the mortal authorities and was likely to remain there for a very long time.  

Buffy found what she’d been looking for and pulled Jonathan’s handwritten letter out of the envelope, unfolding it with a flick of her wrist, before handing it to Giles.

The ex-Watcher replaced his glasses as he took the letter from her, brows furrowed, and began to read. Buffy sat back down on the bed and watched him. She felt like she’d swallowed broken glass, pain stabbed through her abdomen fueled by fear and shame and disgrace. Barbed wire wrapped around her heart and squeezed as she watched the closest thing she had to a real father turn to stone in front of her.

Giles’ face lost all color, turning ashen in the deafening silence as he read. His original expression of concern mixed with confusion hardened into a vacant mask, void of expression. His stomach turned, roiled and threatened revolt, but nothing showed on his features. If not for the small tremors that ran through the hand holding the letter, he didn’t move at all. If he’d allowed himself to move, he would’ve lost control – but the focus of his rage was unavailable for throttling.  This frightened girl in front of him had already done it. No. Not a frightened girl. A brave woman. A protective sister. An honorable Slayer. A Champion of the people. A hero.

Buffy sat in silence, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, unable to even look at him, waiting for her judgment. She’d cried out all her tears already; she didn’t have a single drop left to shed. She just sat and waited for the man she loved like a father to withdraw his love, to tell her that she didn’t deserve his respect any longer, and to leave her … again.

Finally, after many long minutes, Giles looked up from the letter, cleared his throat, and swallowed several times before he found his voice.

“There are times in life that we must make difficult choices, times that we must, perhaps, sacrifice a bit of our souls for the good of others,” Giles said in flat, hard voice. “And, as you’ve pointed out previously, not all monsters are demons.”

“But this wasn’t one of those times,” Buffy whispered, the barbed wire in her chest squeezing tighter, crushing her heart, bleeding her soul.

“Yes, actually. It was,” Giles corrected her, his voice softening slightly as he regained his self-control.

“Did Spike tell you to say that?” Buffy wondered dourly, still not looking at him.

“Well, not exactly. I believe his exact words were that he would eviscerate me if I did not offer you my full and undying support,” Giles admitted. “But that is not the reason I’m saying this.

“You may find this … difficult to accept, but even I have had to make such choices in the past. I realize they are not easy to live with, but at times sacrifices must be made for the greater good, or to protect those we love,” Giles admitted.

Buffy looked up at him finally, her brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“I, too, have taken a human life for the good of others,” he explained.

“You … killed someone – a human? Who?” Buffy asked, shock evident in her voice.

Giles took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he nodded. “I’m certain you recall Ben, Glory’s mortal vessel?”

Buffy’s mouth fell open a moment before she snapped it back closed. “You …?”

Giles looked down at his hands, unable to meet her eyes in that moment. “It had to be done. As I said, sometimes we must sacrifice a piece of our souls for the welfare of the ones we love.”

“For me, you mean,” Buffy realized. “So I didn’t have to …”

Giles looked back up at her, a grim, sad curve to his lips, and nodded. “So, you see, I do understand.

“I’m sorry that you had to make that sacrifice, Buffy, that you have that weight on your soul. I … I would have taken that burden from you if I had known. It is clear from this …” Giles waved the letter in his hand. “That it was the prudent thing to do to protect Dawn, and yourself, for that matter,” Giles assured her.

“Warren was clearly a very disturbed individual. He’d taken a life before with no apparent remorse. Even if he had not escaped or otherwise gotten out of prison, he could have found a way to hire someone to carry out his plans. From what you say, and what this Jonathan reveals here, Warren seemed quite sadistic and set on revenge.”

“Then why do I feel so … guilty, so ashamed?” she asked in a small voice.

Giles sat forward in the chair, setting the letter down on the bed, and took Buffy’s hands in his, his eyes catching and holding her gaze intently. “Because you are a good person, with a good soul, my dear. You always strive to live in the light. You have been given a difficult road to tread in this world. You must walk in the darkest domains, make life and death decisions, not just on your own behalf, but that of the world. You must even conspire with demons at times, all in the name of doing what is right.

“Your life is a riddle, wrapped in a Calling, swathed in mystery, inside a lovely young woman, but somehow you find a way to unravel it each and every time, to find the right path, the _righteous_ path. You live on a razor’s edge between light and dark, one that Faith was unable to balance. But you have, Buffy. You have done it and continue to do so. You are, and always have been, a hero. This does not change that,” he assured her.

Buffy bit down on her bottom lip, trying in vain to keep her chin from quivering before rasping out, “I don’t feel very much like a hero.”

“Well, I can assure you that you are. You are also an incredible woman and Slayer. I am proud to have been your Watcher and I am proud to be your friend. You have not disappointed me, and I know that you shall not, because it is not who you are,” Giles finished, squeezing her hands tightly.

Despite not having any tears left to shed, Buffy’s cheeks were streaked with them. Buffy leaned forward then and dropped her forehead against his shoulder, and Giles wrapped his arms around her in a tender hug.

“Thank you,” she cried, unable to get the tears to stop now that they’d started again. “I love you, Giles.”

“I love you too, Buffy. You may always count on that,” he assured her. “I am here for you. I will always and forever support you, my dear. If you feel that Spike is someone you need, then I will respect that; if you ever change your mind, then I will respect that – and perhaps tip a bottle to that – as well.”

Buffy snorted and shook her head against his shoulder. “Thank you,” she croaked out, her voice breaking with emotion.

“I know that I have not always been able to see the wisdom of your decisions in the moment, but I am man enough to admit that, looking back, you have done the right thing in nearly every circumstance. So, I am willing to give Spike the benefit of the doubt and, also, I assure you that your actions regarding Warren were prudent and justified given the circumstances.

“Sometimes humans are monsters, Buffy.”

Buffy nodded and pulled back. “Thank you,” she repeated, her voice a little stronger. “I … I really needed to hear that from you.”

Giles gave her a fatherly smile. “Please do not tell Spike that I offer any tolerance whatsoever of him. He is insufferable enough as it is.”

Buffy laughed lightly through her tears and nodded. “Okay, I promise.

“I got your shirt wet…” she apologized, reaching out to touch his tear-stained shoulder.

“I’m sure I’ve had worse and most likely shall again,” the ex-Watcher assured her, reaching a hand out to wipe her tears away. “Are you going to be alright?”

Buffy nodded, taking a deep breath. It felt like the first deep breath she’d actually been able to take since she’d killed Warren. She hadn’t realized how much it had weighed on her. She’d been so caught up in finding Spike, in helping him, and in formulating a plan to fight The First, that she kept it pushed from her conscious thoughts. But it had been there, eating at her soul the whole time, just waiting for a chance to devour her completely.

“Thank you,” she said again.

“Would you have told me if Spike hadn’t … intervened?” he asked her.

Buffy shook her head. “I … I don’t know. Probably not,” she admitted.

“Please know that you can tell me anything, Buffy. I’m here for you, no matter what,” Giles assured her, standing up to go.

“Spike got me pregnant,” she blurted out.

“ _WHAT_?” he squawked, his voice rising several octaves and his face turning a lovely shade of purple.

Buffy choked out a laugh through her tears. “Just kidding,” she assured him, wiping her eyes and standing up. “Just thought I’d try out the ‘you can tell me anything’ pledge and see how it went.”

Giles swallowed hard and rubbed his forehead, trying to get the vein that had suddenly started thumping violently to quiet back to a dull throb. “Indeed, well … thank you for that. I was beginning to worry that you would feel uncomfortable sharing confidences with me. I see now, that you are not.

“I feel incredibly … flattered,” he declared.

“You mean you feel incredibly uncomfortable,” she corrected, smiling softly.

“Yes, that as well,” he agreed as he opened the door.

“I’m glad I haven’t lost the knack of that,” she teased, her smile still watery but her heart lightened considerably.  

“No, my dear, I believe that is in your DNA,” Giles assured her as he stepped out into the hallway. He turned then and reached a hand out to rest on her shoulder.

“Which I would love to see you pass on to a child at some date in the very distant future. But I’m certain you realize, that will not happen with Spike,” he added gravely.

Buffy nodded, looking equally serious. “Well, we’ll just keep practicing and see if we can’t get the hang of it one day. Maybe there’s a different position we should try. I hear if he gets on—”

“You may stop now,” Giles interrupted her. “There is sharing and there is over-sharing, and it’s quite important to know where that line lies.”

Buffy smiled at him softly. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Giles.”

“Goodnight, Buffy,” he replied before turning and heading down stairs.

“Do I need t’ eviscerate him, then?” Spike asked from just a couple of feet away in what seemed like the next second.

Buffy started a little, not even realizing he’d been anywhere near. “Uhhh … no, it’s all good,” she told him, taking another deep breath – it felt good to be able to do that. She’d not realized how much tension had been inside her, keeping her from really breathing. 

“Are you okay, pet?” Spike asked tenderly, coming up to her.

Buffy bit her bottom lip and nodded. “I will be, I think,” she assured him. “How did you know I needed that?” she asked.

Spike shrugged. “Know things, don’t I? Know you. He’s the closest thing ya got to a father. I know how it feels to … to not have your parent’s forgiveness, don’t I?”

Buffy nodded. “You mean your mom … for turning her,” Buffy surmised as she started back into the bedroom. “Or for what happened with your father?”

“Both, I reckon,” Spike admitted, looking down ashamedly.

“Not all monsters are demons, Spike. You did what you had to protect your mom. And you were still trying to protect her when you turned her. Believe me, she knew in her soul that you were just trying to help her, that you’d never intentionally hurt her,” Buffy assured him. “She loved you, William.”

Spike pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and nodded grimly. “Still, if you can actually hear it from them, reckon it would mean a bit more … go a bit further, yeah?”

Buffy nodded gravely. “Thank you. I probably wouldn’t have told him,” she admitted. “And I do feel better now.”

“Shame is something that grows with silence, pet. Confession, it turns out, is good for the soul,” he advised her. “Forgiveness and understanding from the ones you love is a healing balm for it.”

Buffy nodded, stopping near the bed and turning to face him. “How did you get so smart?”

“One of my many crosses to bear, luv, what can I say?” he teased gently, making Buffy smile.

“Would you … would you mind … just holding me for a while?” she asked, suddenly feeling oddly shy.

Spike smiled at her softly, closing the door behind himself. “Hold you forever,” he assured her as she crawled into the bed, still in her clothes.

“I’m so tired,” she said unnecessarily as a wide yawn hit her.

Spike climbed into the bed after her, lying back and opening his arms to her. “Come sleep, Buffy.”

She moaned deeply, curling against his body, relishing the feel of his strong arms around her. “I love you, Mr. Summers,” she mumbled before her eyes fell closed and exhaustion overtook her.

“I love you too, Mrs. Summers. Sleep now, I’ve got you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Buffy really needed that! Thank goodness Spike intervened and got her to talk to Giles. Giles sounds not totally thrilled with her marriage to Spike, but at least has offered his support of her decision. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	63. First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone’s got a date! This won’t end well.

****

* * *

 

**Two days later:**

“So, Buffy,” Principal Wood began as he walked into her cubicle at the high school, making her jump and sling the pencil she’d been balancing on the end of her finger in his direction.

The principal bent over and picked it up off the floor, handing it back to her. “Better be careful with that. Sharpened shafts of wood can be dangerous. Could … put an eye out.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she agreed warily, putting the pencil down next to the others on her desk.

“You seem to have an army of them,” he remarked, looking at all the ‘Number 2s’ lined up. “Expecting an invasion of SAT tests?”

Buffy shrugged. “You can never be too prepared for SAT tests,” she explained cheerily. “They have a bad habit of sneaking up on you when you’re least expecting it. They’re evil.”

“Yeah, I guess…” Robin Wood agreed dubiously.

“Was there something you wanted?” Buffy asked, opening the middle drawer of her desk and raking all the pencils into it.

“Not anything in particular. I just thought we could chat a bit, get to know each other,” he said, leaning casually back against a file cabinet.

“Sure. My favorite color is blue, and my favorite food is anything without a secret ingredient. I’m a Capricorn on the cusp of Aquarius, I enjoy traveling, long walks on the beach, sunsets, and reading Harlequin romances,” she divulged lightly. “How about you?”

“Uhhh … that’s … great,” Mr. Wood stammered, smoothing his tie down absently. “But what I really wanted to ask you about was your husband. Spike, right?”

Buffy’s brows furrowed. “Ummm … he’s taken and, also, not into guys so much,” she replied pensively. “Not that you aren’t very attractive in a young, tall, muscular, sharp-dressed, earring-wearing sort of way!” she added hastily.

“Thank you. I think,” the principal replied stoically.

“I mean, not that he’s against gayness or anything! If he was gay, I’m sure he’d really be into you … Or … umm … well, the other way around … or … umm…” Buffy stammered, a tinge of pink rising to her cheeks. “He’s just not … gay.”

Principal Wood nodded. “Got it. Not gay – thus him being married to a woman,” he replied coolly, unflustered by Buffy’s stammering. “But I was just wondering how long you’ve known him? He said he met you here … at Sunnydale High?”

“Yeah…” she replied hesitantly, not sure where this was going. “Actually, we met at the Bronze first, then here … then we just kind of annoyed each other for a while.”

“Did he … grow up here?” Mr. Wood wondered.

Buffy’s ‘intruder alert’ buzzer started going off in her brain, an unrelenting warning. “No, he’s from England. Pretty sure you talked to him? Kinda hard to miss his dreamy accent.”

“Oh, right, of course – dreamy,” the principal agreed, shaking his head as if he just forgot.

“Why the interest in my husband?” Buffy wondered.

“He just seems really familiar, like I might have met him somewhere before,” the principal explained. “He said he was in New York at some point?”

“I guess,” Buffy replied evasively. “He’s been a lot of places. He likes to travel, too. It’s one of the things we like – you know, how married people do? – with the liking of the same things.

“I think he has one of those faces that is just… really common,” Buffy suggested.

The principal nodded again and stood up from where he was leaning on the filing cabinet. “Yeah, that’s probably it. Lots of platinum blondes with sharp cheekbones and dreamy accents walking around, aren’t there?”

“Tons,” Buffy agreed dryly.

“Oh, I see your next appointment is here,” the principal excused himself when he saw a student hovering outside Buffy’s cubicle. “Nice chatting with you.”

“You’ll have to tell me your sign next time,” she suggested.

“Taurus,” he offered over his shoulder as he exited her space.

“Stubborn like a bull?” Buffy muttered to herself, trying to figure out what that conversation was about.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

**That evening:**

“Have you found something about The First?” Giles asked, walking into the dining room where Willow was working at the computer.

Buffy and Dawn stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. A few of the Potentials sat around the table, some paying attention to the conversation and others talking amongst themselves. More Potentials seemed to be arriving daily, at least a couple a day, often more.  Buffy was honestly thinking of getting some stickers that said, ‘Hello, my name is,’ for them to wear. It was getting difficult to remember all the names, but she was trying.

“No. The First is a big fat zero on the internet. Not even a LiveJournal page or an ad on Craigslist,” Buffy explained.

“Craigslist?” Giles asked.  “What, pray tell, is that?”

“It’s like online classified ads,” Willow explained absently, still typing on the keyboard.

“What might The First require with classified advertisements?” Giles wondered.

“Well, he has to recruit his blind mice somewhere,” Buffy supplied, shrugging. “ _Wanted: Zealots willing to mutilate their bodies, lose their souls, and serve evil. See the world! Travel to exciting destinations! Stab innocent girls! Apply in person at the Hellmouth.”_

“Indeed. Shocking that it is not there,” Giles agreed dryly.

“And, also, coincidentally, Principal Wood is not on the internet either,” Willow announced as she stopped typing and looked up.

“Nothing? No records or certificates? College transcripts? No Star Trek fanfic?” Dawn asked, leaning over Willow’s shoulder to look more closely.

“All I can find are really recent records, just since he moved to Sunnydale,” Willow explained. “I’ve Googled till I just can't Google no more. He's not in there.”

“Well, that's suspicious,” Kennedy offered from the seat to Willow’s right.

“Do ya reckon Principal Wood is The First?” Molly asked.

“No,” Buffy assured them. “He’s corporeal, I felt him … I mean … I touched … We all shook hands with him. But that doesn’t mean he’s not working for The First.”

“Or some other big-bad come to join the party,” Willow offered helpfully.

“Yes, that is what we need. More evil in Sunnydale. Buffy, did you send out invitations?” Giles asked, looking at the Slayer.

“I’m having them printed; they aren’t ready yet,” she replied. “I don’t want to send them too far in advance. What is the etiquette for inviting evil to an apocalypse? I’m thinking six weeks’ notice so they have time to RSVP.”

Giles gave her an indulgent smile. “Yes, quite right. Carry on.

“May I ask why you were looking up Mr. Wood in the first place?” Giles asked, turning serious.

“He was acting all weird today. He was really interested in Spike,” Buffy told him.

“Spike? Is the man gay?” Giles wondered.

“I don’t know. He didn’t actually say. He just kept asking where Spike was from, about him being in New York, how we met. It was uber-freaky,” Buffy explained.

“Well, Mr. Wood has reached out to me today, as well,” Giles admitted.

“Wow, that got desperate in a hurry … from Spike to you in one day?” Buffy observed.

“I beg your pardon!” Giles objected. “I am still quite attractive, in excellent health, quite virile, and … also not gay.”

“Just sayin’…” Buffy muttered, shrugging.

“I am to meet him at the Espresso Pump in an hour,” Giles told them. “Perhaps you could be nearby, just in case I am … accosted.”

“Just so we’re clear … when you say ‘accosted’, what type of accosting should I step in and stop?” Buffy asked, unable to contain a teasing grin.

“Yes, very clever,” Giles replied dryly. “Just please do be ready to go shortly, will you? Perhaps a little reconnaissance around the site would be in order prior to the meeting?”

“I’ll get Spike and we’ll check it out. Don’t worry, Giles, we won’t let anything happen to you … that you don’t want to happen,” Buffy assured him, turning to go. “How far do attractive, virile Watchers go on the first date, anyway? Second base? Third? Or do you swing for the fences? You aren’t getting any younger, after all.”

“I’m beginning to recall now why it was I went back to England,” Giles revealed, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes tiredly. “Your dreadful wit and insufferable humor.”

 Buffy laughed as she walked away. “You love me and my insufferable humor,” she called back lightly.

“Heaven only knows why,” Giles muttered as he walked away also.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy and Spike took up a position in the alley across the street from the Espresso Pump where they could see most of the tables but be out of sight. They’d checked around the whole block and hadn’t found any Bringers or other potential threats, so they’d signaled Giles that it was all clear to go in when he’d arrived.

_“How long since you’ve been on a date?”_ Buffy silently asked Giles through the nifty magical communicator amulet that the witches had made for each of them. It hung on a leather thong around her neck. So far, she had to touch it and really concentrate to send out and receive messages, and had to be within sight of the person she was communicating with.  Willow said it was possible to improve that with practice so that, in time, they could each communicate with each other over a distance.

Since it appeared that The First could not read minds, silent communications about anything vital to their plan of attack on The First seemed like a good idea. Willow and Tara had used ametrine to make the charms, a stone which is part amethyst and part citrine, creating a translucent blend of beautiful purple and gold.  This brought together the communication-enhancing qualities of both: citrine aiding in clarity of thought, and amethyst as an aide in opening the mind and crown chakra. That, combined with the communication spell the witches had imbedded in the amulets, made it possible for the Scoobies, along with Giles and Spike, to talk with just with their minds.

Thankfully, they couldn’t actually read each other’s minds, no matter how close they were to each other, but just hear anything someone else actually thought at them. Buffy had had enough of mind-reading back in high school when that demon had infected her. She had no desire to experience that again.

_“Yes, very amusing,”_ Giles thought back at her, taking a seat at an empty table to wait for Mr. Wood.

_“Might actually get shagged in this decade, Watcher,”_ Spike put in. _“They say it’s better to give than to receive, but I think with that bloke, you’ll be doing the catching.”_

_“I’m so glad that you two take such pleasure in your ill-mannered jibes,”_ Giles began, but his train of thought was cut off when his date … err, _appointment_ , arrived.

“Mr. Giles,” the large man greeted him, extending a hand. “Thank you for meeting me.”

Giles stood up and shook it. “Mr. Wood,” he replied in a professional manner. “I must say I am a little curious about the purpose of this meeting.”

“Getting to know people in town over a cup of coffee and a scone isn’t a good enough reason?” Mr. Wood wondered, taking a seat opposite the ex-Watcher.

“Well, certainly, but I would think someone in your stage of life would have more pressing interests other than meeting with a somewhat battle-scarred ex-librarian,” Giles pointed out.

“Not really,” the younger man admitted. “I believe we may have some mutual interests.”

“Well, if you mean correcting the atrocity that you call a library at that school—” Giles began, but the principal laughed lightly, waved a dismissive hand, and shook his head.

“No, I’m sorry, that’s not it. I’m talking about Spike,” Mr. Wood revealed as the waitress came up to take their order.

“I see.” Giles looked around covertly to see if he could find the suggested subject of conversation, and he caught a flash of platinum hair in the alley across the street.  He wasn’t sure if Spike could hear the conversation from there or not. There were other diners talking, traffic on the street outside, music playing in the background, and it was a fair distance away.

_“Buffy, can you hear me?”_ Giles sent out to her, trying to make the fondling of the amulet around his neck seem a casual fidget.

_“Yeah, you need the cavalry? Has he made a pass at you already?”_ she replied.

_“No, actually, but thank you for the concern. I believe things are innocent enough. He simply wanted to talk about the library at the school and get my input,”_ Giles lied. _“You can go. I’ll be fine. Perhaps this would be a good time to install those cameras at the school.”_

_“Okay, well you be home by midnight, young man, and don’t forget: practice safe sex, because practice makes perfect,”_ she teased. _“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”_

_“Thank you for the sage advice. I shall endeavor to not stake anyone,”_ he replied sarcastically.

_“Reckon you’d be the one taking the wood, Rupert,”_ Spike interjected as the two supernatural warriors slipped out of the alley and down the street.

“Pillock,” Giles muttered aloud.

“I’m sorry?” Mr. Wood asked, his brows raised in question.

“Oh … I … errr … now, then, Spike, you say?” Giles redirected the conversation. “How do you know him?”

“He killed my mother,” the younger man revealed bluntly, leaning in closer to the older man, resting his muscled forearms on the table between them.

“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” Giles hedged.

“I’m not mistaken. He’s a vampire, as I’m sure you know, since you’re Buffy’s Watcher,” Mr. Wood replied seriously.

Giles’ brows went up. “And you know this … how?”

“My mother was a Slayer,” Robin continued calmly. “After Spike killed her, I was raised by her Watcher, Bernard Crowley.”

“You are Nikki Wood’s son,” Giles breathed, realization coming to him.

“And you’re a Watcher whose Slayer seems to have been caught up in a vampire’s thrall. I think we can help each other out, kill two birds with one vampire, so to speak,” Mr. Wood suggested, sitting back as the waitress brought their order.

“I see,” Giles said thoughtfully, removing his glasses and polishing them a few moments as he considered. Finally, he looked back up at the man and replaced his spectacles, his expression hard and serious. “Perhaps you are correct. What did you have in mind?”

“I just need to know where I can find him, where he’d be alone in the daytime,” Robin explained. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

Giles nodded, considering. “I see. And you feel you are capable of defeating him? You do realize he’s killed two Slayers. Buffy has fought him many times herself and been unable to dust him.”

“It doesn’t look like she’s trying too hard,” Robin observed.

“Well, no, not at the moment. However, I assure you she has in the past. He is not that easily defeated,” Giles warned.

“Let me worry about that,” the younger man advised. “I’ve been training my whole life for this. I won’t fail.”

“I see. Well, he has been spending most days at his crypt, as Buffy’s house is filling up with Potential Slayers, who can be, quite frankly, extremely exasperating. I’ve actually considered joining him there on more than one occasion,” Giles admitted.  “Are you aware of what is happening?”

“I know something big is going down. Any fool can feel it,” Robin replied. “Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. I have my mother’s Slayer emergency kit. It was supposed to be passed on to the next Slayer, but Crowley couldn’t bring himself to part with it. When he passed, I got it. I haven’t been able to bring myself to even open it.

“With what’s going down, I thought Buffy might need it. It might help,” he offered.

Giles nodded. “We can use all the help we can get. Let me fill you in on what we know about what’s going on.  Then, I can arrange for Buffy to be home tomorrow evening if you’d like to come to the house and present the kit to her yourself, and see what it holds.

“Spike will likely be there. Buffy cannot know of your connection to him or this plan, or there will be dire consequences. Can you work with that?” Giles asked.

The large man nodded. “As long as I know I’ll get my chance soon. I’ve waited a long time for this, I can wait a little while longer,” he assured the ex-Watcher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the heck is Giles doing? Just playing Principal Wood to get information? Or is he really considering getting rid of Spike? He’d just told Buffy he supported her! Would he actually turn on her now? 
> 
> Cool communication amulets, though, right? Way to go Willow and Tara! There is a picture of it in the banner.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	64. Oh, Shit!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike find more than they bargained for in the high school.

* * *

 

“Do you believe Mr. Wood is talking to Giles about the library?” Buffy asked Spike as they started for the high school.

After leaving Giles and Mr. Wood at the Espresso Pump, they’d stopped at the Magic Box and called Willow to have her meet them at Sunnydale High with the equipment to set up surveillance on the suspicious dirt in the basement.

Spike snorted sarcastically. “’Bout as likely as me getting a nice tan next summer,” he remarked.

Buffy frowned and nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Reckon Rupert has his reasons and he’ll tell us when he gets in,” Spike surmised.

“Yeah … you’re probably right. I’m still not convinced he’s not evil,” Buffy remarked.

“Rupert? Evil as they come, luv,” Spike smirked.

Buffy laughed. “I guess that’s why you two get along so well,” she teased.

“Peas in a pod, we are,” Spike agreed sardonically.  

Buffy led them around to the back of the school where she’d left a window open earlier in the day. They both slipped in silently and headed to the front door to unlock it and wait for Willow to show up.

“Had our first dance here,” Spike observed as they walked through the empty hallways. “Fitting, I reckon, right on top of the bloody Hellmouth.”

“Only you would think of that as our first dance,” Buffy teased, but didn’t hide the reminiscent smile that tugged at her lips. “Do you ever wonder why we could never kill each other? Or what would’ve happened if one of us had succeeded?”

Spike pursed his lips and nodded. “Being here without you is not something I really enjoy thinking about, if I’m honest,” he admitted.

Buffy nodded. “Yeah, I’m not sure where I’d be right now if I’d staked you back then. It’s a little scary … What would’ve happened to Dawn if you hadn’t been here that summer I was … gone.”

“Reckon your mates would’a stepped up, pet,” Spike assured her.

Buffy shrugged. “I guess,” she admitted. “But, if you hadn’t been here when I got back, I don’t know how I would’ve made it through with any shred of sanity left.”

Spike gave her a thoughtful smile. What if _he’d_ killed _her_ in their first meeting? Would he still be with Dru? Or would Angel have hunted them down and returned the favor of final death? He’d been heartbroken when Dru left him, but now, with the perspective of time and distance, he could see that Dru had never been able to give back to him the love and affection he really longed for. Buffy could. She had been. They’d made mistakes, argued, hurt each other, all that was true, but, in the end, he knew that he was where he was meant to be now.

“As to why we couldn’t?” Spike posited after a few moments of silence as they walked. “Not really sure on that either. Equally matched, I reckon, is part of it, but …”

Buffy nodded. “But,” she repeated. “But sooner or later one of us should’ve had a … ‘real good day’,” she added, using words he’d told her a long time ago when describing how he’d finally kill her.

“Yeah,” Spike agreed dourly. “A real good day.”

Buffy looked out the front doors to see if she saw Willow, but the witch hadn’t arrived yet, so she turned back around to face Spike while they waited.

“There are no coincidences, you know that, right?” Buffy asked him. “We’re both gonna need to do our parts to defeat The First. No matter what that means, no matter what it takes, no matter how much it hurts or how hard it is. That’s got to be the reason we’re both here now.

“The mission has to come first. Can you do it?” she asked somberly.

Spike looked down at the floor, breaking eye contact with her, his hands on his hips, lips pursed, and nodded. “I know, luv. No matter what it takes, I can do it,” he assured her, a lump forming in his throat. “Never thought I’d be here with you … standing on the edge of hell like this … at your side.”

Buffy smiled sadly and stepped forward toward him, laying a hand gently on his cheek. “You shouldn’t have fallen in love with a Slayer, Spike. My life is nothing but standing on the edge of hell, interrupted only by short respites of death.”

“Fitting, I suppose, that our first dance and last dance would be here, then, eh?” he asked, pulling her into his arms.

“We aren’t there yet,” she assured him, pulling back slightly to look up into his eyes.

“Any dance could be our last, you know that,” he pointed out grimly, holding her gaze, trying to memorize every detail of her in that moment.

Buffy nodded, equally solemn, there was no way to argue with that. “Then we should dance.”

Spike began to hum softly, and then sing as their bodies began to move together, a slow sway in the empty hallway.

{{  [Save the Last Dance for Me, The Drifters](https://youtu.be/n-XQ26KePUQ) }}

_“You can dance every dance with the guy,_  
“Who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight,  
“You can smile-every smile for the man,  
“Who held your hand ‘neath the pale moon light,

_“But don't forget who's takin' you home,_  
“And in whose arms you're gonna be,  
“So darlin' save the last dance for me.”

Buffy sighed and leaned into him, letting him lead them in a gentle, meandering dance on the new linoleum floors of the school. How many dances had they had? Not enough. Not nearly enough. But Spike was right, their last dance would likely be soon, it could come at any time, and it would be right here at the gates of hell. She’d known, or at least believed strongly, that at least one of them would not survive this battle. Swaying here with him in the dark she prayed that it would be her, because she just didn’t think she could make it in this world without him.

_“Oh, I know, that the music’s fine,_  
“Like sparklin' wine, go and have your fun,  
“Laugh and sing, but while we're apart,  
“Don't give your heart to anyone,

_“But don't forget who's takin' you home,_  
“And in whose arms you're gonna be,  
“So darlin' save the last dance for me.”

Spike savored the feel of her supple, warm body against his, the slow, steady beat of her heart, and the sound of her gentle sighs as they moved together in the empty hallway.

They’d had their ups and downs, that was for certain, but they’d made it this far, and he was sure if they could just get past this latest big-bad that they could make it forever. But she’d been honest with him about this battle for a long time: they weren’t both going to make it. He held out hope that she was wrong, she’d said it was possible. But, he knew in his heart that the Powers would never be so generous. No matter what sacrifice he made, no matter his soul, no matter his love for her, they would not allow their Slayer to remain with a vampire for long.  For that reason, he knew that it was he who would perish in the coming battle.

He was at once angry and relieved for the knowledge. Angry that he wouldn’t have a lifetime to spend with this woman in his arms, angry that he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise of ‘forever’, but at the same time relieved that he would not have to be the one who would have to carry on without her. He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t strong enough. He just wouldn’t be able to bear this harsh world without her.

_“Baby, don't you know I love you so,_  
“Can't you feel it when we touch?  
“I will never, never let you go,  
“I love you oh so much,

_“Oh, baby, won't you save the last dance for me?_  
“Ooh, you make a promise,  
“That you'll save the last dance for me,  
“Save the last dance,  
“The very last dance, for me.”

Buffy looked up and met his eyes when he stopped singing. “I promise … every dance,” she whispered as he dipped his head and captured her lips in a gentle kiss.

Her lips parted for him as his tongue slipped between them, welcoming him within her warm depths. Their tongues swirled and danced a passionate samba of their own, tasting and teasing, the promise of so much more passing between them.

Spike wondered if he would be allowed to remember this feeling in the depths of hell. If he would be able to recall the taste of her, the passion of her, the raw, sensuous spirit of his Slayer. He hoped the Powers would at least give him that much. At least let him remember these moments of connection, of barely contained desire, of tender devotion.

The two blondes jumped and separated when the front door of the school squeaked as Willow pulled it open, rudely breaking them from their trance.

“Well, I’m glad to see the romance hasn’t gone out of your relationship with the legal-making of it. But I’m sure what you were doing is something you’d get detention for if you got caught, Mr. and Mrs. Summers,” the witch chastised lightly.

Buffy took a deep breath to get her heart to calm down from being startled back to reality.

“I’m sure the breaking and entering would be a bigger concern, actually,” Buffy pointed out as her adrenaline began to wane. “Do you have the nerd stuff?”

“I have it. I am ready to spy on the evil basement dirt with stealth and sneakiness,” Willow confirmed, holding up a duffel bag.

“Okay, 007, let’s go be nerdy,” Buffy invited as she started for the door to the basement, Spike at her side.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike held a hand out and stopped Buffy and Willow as he led them through the maze-like basement toward the room they’d discovered with the dirt floor.

“What?” Buffy whispered, coming to a stop next to him.

Spike held up a finger asking her to wait as he closed his eyes and concentrated on his other senses. After a moment he opened his eyes and looked at his two companions. “Someone’s here,” he advised them. “Smells like one o’ those wankers from the van … Warren’s little bitch – the ponce.”

“You mean Tucker’s brother? What the hell?” Buffy whispered, pulling a stake out of the waistband of her jeans. “Why would he be here?”

Spike shook his head. “Dunno … I say we ask him nicely, then break his scrawny neck.”

The three began to move again, faster now, heading for the room where the cement had been removed. As they got close, they heard unusual sounds coming from it, metal scraping upon metal. It almost sounded like swords sliding against each other, but louder, rougher, and more prolonged.  But the alarming thing was the wave of malevolent energy that washed over them, a vile, foul flood of pure evil.

Buffy and Spike took off running full-speed for the closed door of the dirt-floored room as a bright glow began gleaming out around the edges, shining out into the hallway.

“Stay back!” Buffy ordered Willow, who was several yards back in any case, as Spike yanked the door open, flooding the whole area with a brilliant light, momentarily blinding them.

The feeling of being drowned in foreboding evil redoubled when Spike opened the door, momentarily stunning both of them into a state of immobility. The two fighters raised their arms to shield their eyes from the bright light, blinking, trying to clear their vision, just as the light faded back to dimness. Before they could regain their sight and fight off the feeling of being consumed by wicked energy, another sound reached them: a deep, ominous growl. 

The deep growl was joined a moment later by a squeaky, hysterical voice chanting, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”

“Oh, shit,” Buffy swore in agreement with the unknown chanter as a vampire climbed up out of an open portal in the floor, which had, apparently, been buried under the evil dirt. It was buried no longer.

It wasn’t like any vampire she’d ever seen before. The closest had been The Master, but this surpassed him in size and ugliness by several degrees. The thing had no hair on its large, bony head, and it stood at least a foot taller than Spike. Its blue-grey skin and clear, albino-like eyes suggested some kind of cave dweller that had never been above the surface of the Earth before this moment. The rest of its features: a flat, bat-like nose, pointed Vulcan ears, long, talon-like nails, and a mouth full of sharp teeth that suggested it was part crocodile, did nothing to change her original ‘oh, shit’ impression of it.

In almost the same moment, both she and Spike attacked the large, growling monster. Buffy hit it squarely in the heart with her stake, driving the wood in with all her strength, and Spike hit it in the jaw with an iron fist. The monstrous vampire swatted them both away as if they were flies, one with each hand. The blondes sailed through the air, bouncing painfully off the nearest wall, as the portal the vampire had emerged from began closing.

Buffy could barely hear the metal against metal scrape as the portal closed through the ringing in her ears, and someone was still chanting, ‘Oh, shit,’ somewhere nearby. Unfortunately, she had no attention to spare for that because the huge vampire was stalking toward her purposely. She scrambled back up to her feet and watched with wide eyes as it simply pulled the stake from its chest and pulverized it in its huge hand.

“DOWN!” Spike screamed, and Buffy instantly dropped into a low squat as the end of a shovel swung over her head and slammed against the vampire’s ugly face.

A reverberating ‘clang’ filled the small room as the heavy, metal shovel smashed into the bony forehead of the big vampire, but it barely made the thing take a step back. The monster grabbed the wooden handle of the shovel and yanked it from Spike’s hands, embedding splinters into the blonde’s palms. And then, in the next moment, the monster began smashing the shovel down on Buffy, pummeling her down into the soft earth below.

Spike roared and flung himself at the enemy, hitting the larger vampire like a professional linebacker taking out a fullback, but with less effect, unfortunately. He did manage to stop the monster from bashing Buffy over the head with more blows from the shovel, but only because it turned its full attention on Spike.

The thing moved faster than Spike anticipated. He only knew that uber-vamp had swung the shovel at him when it hit his temple with bone-cracking power. Spike stumbled, his head spinning, but he had little time to recover. In the next instant Spike felt his shoulder being wrenched out of its socket as the uber-vamp grasped his wrist and began to spin him in the air by one arm, much like a deranged Steelers fan with a Terrible Towel. When the subterranean vampire released Spike, the blond flew through the air at breakneck speed, perhaps literally. His back crashed into one of the block walls of the room hard enough to collapse a section of it. Spike’s head cracked against the solid surface like a ripe melon, then his body slid bonelessly down to be almost completely buried in the falling debris of the demolished wall.

The uber-vamp roared in victory, tossing down the broken handle of the shovel it still held in its bony fingers. Its reverberating growl shook the walls of the small room as it turned its attention back on Buffy.   As it stalked slowly back to the bludgeoned, dazed Slayer, saliva dripping ravenously in anticipation of the buffet awaiting him, Willow came up from behind it and drove the end of the broken shovel handle into its back.

Unfortunately, that had about the same effect as Buffy’s stake had, simply making the vampire angrier. It swung around to face her, reaching back to try and remove the protruding wood from its back. It snarled and snapped its jaws at her, flinging stinking drool in all directions as it struggled to remove the wooden lance.

“Oh … uh … Hi! You must be new,” Willow stammered as it focused its unearthly eyes on her.

Before it could get the shovel handle out of its back, she darted around it and reached Buffy’s crumpled form.

“Buffy! Get up! Buffy!” Willow screamed, shaking her friend’s shoulder, trying to rouse the Slayer, but there was no response from the blonde. The witch tried in vain to drag Buffy over to where Spike was sprawled, buried in the broken blocks, but she didn’t have time to get far before the creature roared again, pulling the improvised stake free from its ribcage.

“Impedimentia!” Willow invoked, waving a hand at the huge demon.

The uber-vamp slowed, as if walking through a wall of thick tar, but did not stop moving. In just a couple of steps it had broken out of the spell and was moving again at full speed toward the downed heroes and panicking witch.

The witch looked frantically back and forth between Spike and Buffy. She couldn’t protect them both – there was just too much space between them. “I’m sorry,” she muttered before crouching over Buffy and invoking, “Caerimonia Minerva, saepio, saepire, saepsi! Saepio impedimentum!”

A dome of shimmering light sprang up over them just in time. The vampire drove its fist down toward the pair, but the blow bounced off Willow’s force-field. The vampire tried again and again, roaring in furious frustration as its power was deflected off and absorbed into the ground below.

“Well, well, well,” a sarcastic female voice rang out, making the uber-vamp stop its assault on the force-field.

Jenny Calendar crouched down next to Willow and Buffy, eyeing the dome of magic critically. “Look at you, being all heroic, saving the Slayer from the big, bad vampire.  You’ve come a long way, little witch. You couldn’t even save me from Angelus back in the day,” the dead teacher mocked.

“Admittedly, the Slayer would’ve been a tasty snack for the teacher’s new pet, but I’m sure there are plenty of ripe little Potentials roaming into town that will do. I wonder how grateful she’s going to be when she wakes up and realizes you didn’t save her vile, filthy pet vampire. Whatever will she do without him to fuck in the middle of the night, hmm?” the apparition taunted.

Jenny Calendar stood up and motioned for the uber-vamp to get Spike, moving away from Willow and Buffy.

“Leave him alone!” Willow demanded from the safety of the protective magical dome she held around them.

“Or you’ll do what? Fling harsh words at me?” Jenny taunted as the large vampire pulled Spike from the rubble by one arm and began dragging him away, like a child dragging a ragdoll behind them.

“Buffy’s gonna beat your ass!” Willow threatened, watching in horror as the huge vampire disappeared from the room with Spike.

Jenny laughed maliciously. “Oh yes, I can tell by the way she’s bleeding and unconscious. So frightening! What ever shall I do?” she taunted.

And then the apparition was gone, along with the big vampire and Spike. Willow didn’t drop the shield, but did turn her attention back to her friend.

“Buffy? Can you hear me?” the witch asked softly, running a hand gently over Buffy’s head. There were several large bumps on the back of her head the size of goose eggs, and growing, and blood was soaked thickly into her hair.  Buffy’s face was cut and bruised, and another large bump was forming on her forehead, as well.

“Buffy, please wake up,” Willow begged, panic beginning to set in as she tried to figure out how she was going to get her friend out of here, and to safety and help.

“Shouldn’t she stand up now? You know, like in ‘The Terminator’ after Kyle blows up the tanker and burns the flesh from the Terminator's endoskeleton, but the cyborg just keeps coming?” a voice asked from just behind Willow, making her start and lose her concentration, dropping the magical shield.

“Who the hell are you!?” she demanded, jumping up and standing between the skinny blonde boy and Buffy.

“Oh … you don’t remember me. I’m Andrew, Andrew Wells,” he introduced himself, extending a hand toward the witch.

Willow only scowled at him, and Andrew lifted his hand up and smoothed it over his hair, as if that was what he’d intended to do in the first place.

“Again I ask: who are you and why are you here?” Willow demanded angrily.

“Andrew Wells,” he repeated impatiently. “Tucker’s brother? Formerly of The Trio …”

“Impedimentia!” Willow invoked again, hoping to God it worked better on humans than it had on that ugly vampire. It did. The boy up was wrapped up in a magical containment spell that extended from his shoulders to his feet, holding him immobile, pinning his arms down by his sides.

“Hey! No fair!” he cried, struggling to get free.

“What are you doing here? What does the Trio have to do with this?” the witch demanded again. “Tell me or I’ll … I’ll set your hair on fire!”

“No! Wait!” he squealed. “I’ll tell you! I … well … there was this horrible monster – it looked like the alien from Aliens only with more hair, like Gowron, the leader of the Klingon Empire, but larger and kind of slimy with those teeth that—”

“Speak English!” Willow demanded, tightening the magical prison that held him and making Andrew squeak.

“It made me do terrible things! It made me dig this mystical manhole cover up!” he blurted out quickly.

“ _You_ opened the Hellmouth?” Willow asked, incredulous. “And let that … that _thing_ out?”

“I didn’t know what it would do, I swear! But it threatened me. It was going to make me its love slave if I didn’t do what it said. I had no choice!” Andrew asserted. “It’ll kill me now that I have served my unholy purpose!”

“How did you open it?” Willow asked, eying him warily.

“With blood. It needed blood,” Andrew explained.

“Whose blood?”

“Well, I guess just any blood. I got it at the butcher shop,” Andrew told her, tilting his head toward the stack of empty containers that had previously held pig’s blood by the far wall. “It was really expensive. Who knew that pig’s blood cost so much. I had to sell my ‘Uncanny X-Men’ #284, ‘What Lies Beyond the Void’ to afford it! It was near mint! Stan Lee had signed it! Do you have any idea how hard that was to get? It took weeks of stalking—"

Willow let out a low growl that would’ve rivaled Spike’s, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

“Wait! Please don’t set my hair on fire! You’re with the Slayer! You’re one of the good guys! You have to help me. Everyone knows that. The good guys have to help the hapless victim,” Andrew asserted dramatically.

“You don’t look like much of a victim,” the witch asserted.

“Umm … maybe anti-hero?” the skinny blond suggested. “You still have to help me. It’s the rule.”

Willow snorted derisively.  “I didn’t see anything in here but that creature you released. Just where did this big monster scamper off to?” she wondered.

“It … umm … might’ve … flown away?” Andrew suggested tentatively.

“Right, flown away,” Willow scoffed. “Listen, you little spazoid! You’re gonna help me get Buffy out of here, and then we’ll see if we can’t get one honest word out of you,” Willow told him. “And if you try any funny stuff, I’ll skin you alive with a cheese grater and dump you in a vat of grapefruit juice!”

“Okay! Geez! You don’t have to be so mean!” Andrew agreed. “Just keep that ugly _thing_ away from me.”

“That ugly _thing_ will be the least of your worries if you screw with me!” Willow threatened, releasing him from the containment spell. “Now help me get her out of here.”

* * *

 

Note: If you are unfamiliar with Steelers fans and Terrible Towels, [here is a video](https://youtu.be/0JtV7slVERQ)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH, SHIT!! I think we will find ourselves saying that quite a lot over the next several chapters! HANG IN THERE! The ride will be wild, lots of hair-raising bends, and bile-inducing drops, but you’ve made it this far, TRUST ME! It will all be worth it in the end! Okay? Okay!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	65. Mr. Ancient and Ugly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy learns more about the uber-vamp, perhaps more than she really wanted to know, while The First Evil tries to break Spike.

“Buffy! Wake up, honey. You’re going to be late for school,” Joyce warned, shaking Buffy’s shoulder.

Her daughter moaned and put an arm over her face, shielding her eyes from the light. “Mom?” she asked in a hoarse, raspy voice.

“Of course, Mom – who else would it be?” Joyce replied. “Now, get up! Spike will be here soon. You don’t want to be late for school again today. You know, all those days being tardy goes on your permanent record.”

Buffy pushed herself up in the bed groggily. “Spike?” she questioned looking around at her bedroom. She was in her old bed from high school, the boy-band posters still covered her walls, her pom-poms still hung from atop the mirror on her dresser.

“Buffy, what is wrong with you? Spike … your boyfriend? You remember him, don’t you?” Joyce chastised.

“Yeah, sure, I just … Why is he coming here?” Buffy asked.

“To take you to school, of course. Like he does every day,” Joyce explained, reaching a hand out to check Buffy’s forehead for fever. “Are you feeling okay? You seem a little warm,” Joyce observed.

Buffy rubbed her eyes and face, trying to wake up and focus. “I have a headache,” she admitted.

“Well, it’s no wonder. Getting repeatedly smashed over the head by a monster with a shovel will do that,” Joyce observed frowning.

“Oh … is that what happened?” Buffy asked, feeling all the bumps on her head and wincing as she touched each one.

“You’re lucky that’s all that happened,” her mom informed her. “But you need to get up now. You’ve got all those vampires in the basement to fight. They aren’t just gonna roll over and die, you know. No timeouts for the Slayer.”

“ _All_ the vampires … What do you mean ‘ _all’_. There was just one. And that one filled my quota for un-killable vampires for this lifetime,” Buffy retorted, sliding to the edge of the bed and preparing to stand up.

Suddenly, the floor beneath Buffy’s feet began to move, the sound of metal scraping against metal sending a chill down her spine.

She looked down to see something on the floor that was definitely not her floor. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it looked like a round, metallic disk, several feet across. It had raised designs in it, but the main image was that of an angry, deranged-looking goat. Although Buffy hadn’t actually seen what had covered the portal in the basement of the school, she immediately knew that this was it.

Were the Three Billy Goats Gruff working with The First? Or maybe they _were_ The First. They were kind of evil for goats – or at least the eldest Gruff was.

_Well, come along! I've got two spears,_  
And I'll poke your eyeballs out your ears;  
I have a forehead as hard as stone,  
And I'll crush you to bits, body and bones.

It wouldn’t be the first time a fairy tale creature tried to kill her, after all.

Buffy watched in horrified fascination as her bedroom floor turned into the gateway to the Hellmouth, pieces of the metallic door sliding and shifting, opening as bright light poured from the ever-widening cracks. She slid back, pulling her feet up onto the mattress as she watched the pieces disappear and an ominous, gaping hole open in her bedroom floor. At first, she thought that was it – that was all that was going to happen. Maybe she was supposed to go down in there to see something, but before she could move, more ugly, uber-vampires began streaming out.

Buffy looked up at her mom with wide, shocked eyes as the big, ugly vampires spilled from the opening in a never-ending stream. They roared and snarled and growled as they made their way out of her room and clomped down the stairs and out into the world beyond.

How many? A hundred? Two hundred? They just kept coming, faster and faster now, sometimes three and four at a time. A thousand? More?

Buffy’s mom stood on the other side of the open portal, just watching serenely as the seemingly undefeatable vampires streamed from the bowels of hell to take over the world.

“Mom?” Buffy pleaded, her voice small and frightened. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I told you, honey – they aren’t going to wait for you to feel better. You have to deal with them. It’s up to you now. From beneath you, it devours.”

Then her mother suddenly morphed into the First Slayer. Buffy had met this prehistoric African girl before in dreams and vision quests. She was suddenly afraid, more afraid of whatever message this apparition was about to impart on her than of the uber-vamps. ‘Death is your gift’, was the last message of substance from The First Slayer, and Buffy feared hearing something like that again – feared knowing that the only way to save this world was to leave it. Again.

“It is not enough,” the First Slayer purred in her oddly uninflected voice.

“What? What is not enough?” Buffy asked frantically. She jumped off the bed to get closer to her predecessor, forgetting that there was a portal to hell there instead of her floor. Buffy screamed as she fell through the portal, waking with a jerk before she crashed into whatever passed for the ground in hell.

The sound, sight, and even smell of the horrible vampires was still vivid in her mind as Buffy instinctively tried to sit up. She immediately regretted moving. Buffy slowly settled her head back down on her pillow as her brain began to throb and pound like a hundred acid-rock drummers had taken up residence within. She touched a tentative hand to her forehead and found a huge knot; more exploration revealed even more. She tried to turn over, only to have her bruised, and possibly broken, ribs object vehemently.

Buffy stopped moving, lying perfectly still, trying to breathe through the pain. She was in her room, in her bed – that was about the only thing she knew for sure. She had no memory of getting here or any clue about how long she’d been out. The door was open and she could hear voices drifting up from downstairs – Willow and Giles mostly, but with interjections from someone she didn’t know.

Random words floated up to her: internal injuries, subdural hematoma, Turok-Han, Seal of Danzalthar, blood, portal, Hellmouth, The First.

She wished she could hear Spike’s voice. Wasn’t he there? Or maybe he’d been hurt too. But he wasn’t here with her. Where was he? Her concentration and strength began to fade, her mind started to slowly twirl as if the world was standing still and she was the one spinning, and she dropped back into an uneasy oblivion. 

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 

“My sweet, Spike,” the apparition of Drusilla purred into Spike’s ear. “Won’t you join us in our reindeer games? Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen … Your little vixen won’t be coming for you. She’s left you to me now,” she told the bound vampire as she twirled in slow circles in front of him, dancing to music only she could hear.

Spike hung from a rock wall by his chained and shackled wrists, his toes barely touching the floor, all his weight being suspended by his arms and shoulders. His right shoulder was already dislocated from the uber-vamp spinning him around by his arm in the basement, and the pain that radiated out of that socket felt like a thousand knives of piercing fire shooting through his body.

To make things worse, his brain felt about ten sizes too big for his skull, and he was fairly sure grey matter must be leaking from his ears, it hurt so much. He floated in and out of consciousness, but was never allowed to remain in the sweet, dark oblivion for long.  Whenever he drifted off, the playful uber-vamp would happily wake him back up with a punch or kick, or just a deep jab of its long claws into Spike’s flesh.

“You’ve been a bad, bad daddy. Spilled, spilled, spilled our secrets like seed,” First-Dru continued scolding, moving closer to her childe. “But it’s nearly Christmas, and Kris Kringle is feeling randy today. _Rawrrrr_! Giving you another chance, he is! But you must frolic and romp with the other reindeer – no more biting.”

First-Dru snapped her teeth at him to punctuate her words, but Spike was beyond reacting to such outbursts; it just hurt too much to even flinch.

“It’s a fun, funny game we all get to play. The salt and sugar and the raisin and the rum, and still there's room for everyone! Climb into my lair and let the sugar plum fairies dance, dance, dance in your hair. They burble and brew and make all our wishes come true. What do you wish, my sweet, sinful William?” she asked, leaning in very close to him.

“Wish you’d quit prattling and let a bloke get some shuteye,” Spike croaked, unable to even lift his head to look at her. “Loopy as a bloody crochet convention, you are, and still not as barmy as Dru.”

First-Dru pulled back from Spike, pouting. With a curt jerk of her head she had the uber-vamp punch Spike in the jaw, rattling his teeth and sending his head whipping violently to one side. Stars swam behind his eyelids and a new gout of blood filled his mouth as hot bolts of pain surged through him anew, making the chronic pain that had been there seem like soft, fluffy clouds.

With an effort, he gathered up as much energy as he could and spat toward the apparition of his sire.  First-Dru simply stepped to the side and clucked her tongue reprovingly, giving him a disdainful glare.

“Bad daddy,” she pouted before beginning to whirl and dance again, her pale, thin arms swaying gracefully from side to side as she drifted over the sandy floor in front of Spike. “Today king of mice. Tonight king of dolls. Tomorrow king of everything.

“The world is a wicked, ripe plum, just waiting for you to take a bite, to tear and rip and shred and chop into messes. _Grrrrr_!” she growled, baring her teeth.  “Come sup on your ripe, wicked plum, my Spike. I promise you eyeballs and entrails and rivers of blood for your Yuletide feast. All you must do is choose … choose the dance of the sugar plum fairies and we will be kings and sultans and lords of the ball.”

“Dru, luv?” Spike whispered hoarsely, barely able to lift his head as he opened his blackened eyes to see her.

“Yes, my sumptuous prince?” Dru purred, moving up very close to him again.

“Get bent,” he ground out, before his head lolled forward limply on his shoulders and he found a moment of peace in the black nothingness.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy woke from a dream of uber-vamps devouring blocks of cheddar cheese like a herd of big, ugly rats. She sighed, realizing that dropping chunks of poisonous cheese down the portal probably would not actually kill them.

Her head still felt like hell, and her ribs were a close second – call them ‘purgatory’ – but she pushed herself up to a sitting position in the bed, regardless. She could still hear voices downstairs, but honestly had no idea how long she’d been out. It was light outside, but she didn’t know if it was just the next day, or if she’d been down longer. She forced herself to her feet, biting back shrieks of pain that stabbed into her eyes and lungs, and headed out to find out what was going on.

“I simply do not know,” Giles was saying as Buffy slowly and carefully descended the stairs.

“What do we do if she can't fight, if she can't beat this thing?” Willow asked, her voice sounding about as frightened as Buffy felt.

“I’m afraid none of our plans will be of any use in that case. We will be back at ground zero,” Giles replied.

 “You mean ‘square one’,” Xander corrected the ex-Watcher. “’Ground zero’ is the big, black smudge of destruction left after bomb blast.”

Giles raised his brows. “One may tend to resemble the other if we cannot find a way to fight the First and the Turok-Han.”

“We can, and we will win,” Buffy insisted, coming into the dining room where a small group, including the Scoobies, a couple of the Potentials, and two unexpected faces were sitting.

“Buffy!” came exclamations of relief and worry as they all jumped up.

“Are you alright?” Xander asked, moving over to help her to one of the chairs.

“Not so much,” she admitted, wincing as she sat down. “But I will be. And I will kick that ugly uber-vamp’s ass very soon,” she assured them.

“Are we just letting anyone into our clubhouse now?” Buffy asked, eyeing the two newcomers. “Or did you bring your date home for some ‘ _accosting’_ and just decided to let him join the party?” she wondered, looking at Giles.

Giles cleared his throat. “I can assure you, it was not a date, and Robin is—”

“My mother was a Slayer,” Mr. Wood interjected. “I can help.”

Buffy’s head rocked back a bit, as if she’d been struck, then turned to face him. “Your mom …” she breathed. “I didn’t know any Slayers had kids.”

“Well, I don't know of any others. She was killed when I was four,” Mr. Wood revealed.

“Oh. I’m sorry. Um, something got her... a demon??” Buffy asked, quickly reassessing this man who now sat across the dining table from her, running past conversations with him back through her mind.

“A vampire. I went through this whole ‘avenging son’ phase in my twenties, but I never found him. So, now I just dust as many of them as I can find. I figure, eventually I'll get him,” Robin revealed.

“Uh-huh,” Buffy muttered, things starting to click in her brain. “Um, so, do you have any Slayer powers?”

“No, I don't have powers. No super-strength or mythic responsibilities. I'm just a guy with a few skills ‘cause her Watcher took me in and raised me,” the man explained. “But, I do have something that might help in this fight, the Slayer emergency kit that belonged to my mother.”

“Handy,” Buffy murmured. “Just in time for an emergency, huh?”

“Mr. Giles has told me what’s going on, what’s coming,” Robin explained. “It seemed … prudent to pass it along to you. There might be something in there that will help.”

“Mr. Giles is very helpful like that,” Buffy agreed irreverently, looking over to her ex-Watcher.

“Where did you say your mom was killed?” Buffy asked Robin, but kept her eyes locked on Giles.

“I didn’t,” the principal replied. “But it was in New York.”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed, and pain shot back from them into her brain. Despite the bolts of agony, her hard gaze didn’t waver from Giles, who suddenly found it imperative to break eye contact with her and clean his glasses.

The air was heavy, thick, and seemed to hold everyone frozen in place beneath its weight. No one spoke. No one moved. The silence dragged on in the room for an uncomfortable minute or three.

“Huh … interesting,” Buffy muttered, finally breaking the silence and turning her attention to the other newcomer in the room.

“Who’s that?” the Slayer asked next, eyeing the scrawny blond boy warily. “And why is he here?”

“It’s Andrew Wells. He’s our prisoner,” Willow explained. “He opened the portal … he let the uber-vamp—”

“Turok-Han,” Giles interjected. “It’s called a Turok-Han.”

“The Turok-Han,” Willow corrected with an eye roll, “out.”

“He’s … who? And … why?” Buffy asked again, eyeing the kid suspiciously.

“Tucker’s brother. He was one of Warren’s … umm…” Willow’s voice trailed off, looking warily between Buffy and Andrew.

“Oh, yeah … now I remember you, you little twerp. You bailed Warren out of jail. You helped him shoot me,” Buffy growled, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “And now you’re opening portals for The First? Why am I not shocked and dismayed? You evil, little…”

“No! I’m not evil! I swear! …. I mean, sure, I _was_ , but now I’m not! With the benevolent forgiveness of your virtuous league of just and kind warriors, I have been transformed, shown the error of my ways. I’m truly changed, like Black Widow … Once the master assassin working for a dark and dangerous organization, I have seen the light and now pledge my life to the pursuit of truth, justice, and the American way.”

“ _You_ were a master assassin?” Buffy asked incredulously.

Andrew shrugged. “Well, I … _maybe_ ,” he asserted, lifting his chin defiantly.

Buffy looked at Willow. “Why is he here? And can I hit him now?”

Willow rolled her eyes. “I took him prisoner so we could interrogate him, and we found out the portal can be opened with blood. I didn’t want to let him go running off and blabbing to The First or helping it more, so … we kept him,” the witch explained with a shrug. “But, if The First has more dupes like him around, it could be opened again. I don’t know if there are more of those Turok guys down there—”

“There are,” Buffy announced flatly. “Swarms of them.”

“Buffy? Are you certain?” Giles asked, leaning forward in his chair worriedly.  “Until Willow described the vampire to me, I thought they were a myth.”

“Apparently, Giles was myth-taken,” Xander piped up from Buffy’s other side, making the ex-Watcher scowl down the table at him.

Giles continued speaking as if Xander hadn’t spoken, ignoring the barely-suppressed smiles around the group. “They are vampires, but they are something more than that. As Neanderthals are to human beings, the Turok-Han are to vampires. Primordial, ferociously powerful killing machines, as single-minded as animals. They are the vampires that vampires fear. An ancient and entirely different race.”

“Yeah, well, I’m the thing that monsters fear. Mr. Ancient and Ugly will know why soon enough,” Buffy assured them.

“But, how do you know there are more?” Giles wondered.

“Dream,” the Slayer explained simply, rubbing a hand over her ribs where they ached.  

“I see, and you feel it was prophetic, not simply borne of your imagination?” Giles wondered.

“I know the difference, Giles,” she assured him confidently.

“Where’s Spike?” Buffy asked next, looking around at her friends before settling a distrustful gaze on Robin Wood.

None of them could meet her eyes, and another long, uncomfortable silence fell over the room before Willow cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry, Buffy. I could only protect one of you.”

Buffy’s world stopped spinning. Everything in it seemed to crash into everything else with the violence of the crash. The bottom fell out of Buffy’s stomach and her guts twisted into knots in an instant. A horrible, empty, lost feeling thundered over her in that moment, nearly knocking her out of her chair. ‘ _Any dance could be our last._ ’ Spike’s words smashed down on her like a freight train, threatening to crush her under its considerable weight and bury her in a bottomless pit of anguish.  

“No…” she forced out through her tight throat, a barely-audible plea, as tears sprang to her eyes and her heart began to splinter into shards of razor-sharp sorrow.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike woke with a scream as the Turok-Han drove one long, sharp nail into the blond’s stomach and began fishing around inside, as if trying to hook his entrails and pull them out through the small hole. His body arched, sending more agony stabbing out from his shoulders into his chest and back. The pain in his torso was so excruciating that he no longer even noticed how much his head hurt.

“You know,” First-Angel began, sighing dreamily. “I can’t ever get enough of that sound, _Willie_.

“Do it again,” he instructed the ancient vampire, closing his eyes and waiting for the screams. “Ahhh … music to my ears,” First-Angel breathed, rapturously soaking in the sound of Spike’s strangled cries of pain.

First-Angel took a deep, cleansing, and quite unneeded, breath and walked slowly over nearer the captive.

Spike’s head lolled forward on his neck, but he had, unfortunately, not passed out.

“You know, she told me all those same things she told you, buddy,” the apparition confided to Spike. “I gave her a ring, too … did she ever tell you that? I notice it’s not on any of those pretty little fingers of hers. But I bet it’s still in her jewelry box.

“Oh, Angel,” First-Angel mocked in a high, falsetto voice, clasping his hands against his chest and batting his lashes dramatically. “I love you so much. Don’t leave me! I want my life to be with you. I’ll always be your girl. Just kiss me … oh, Angel, I can’t live without you.”

Spike lifted his head and spit a mouthful of blood at the image of his grandsire, making First-Angel laugh spitefully as it sailed through him.

“You know it’s true,” First-Angel told Spike, returning to his normal, mocking tone. “Deep down, you know. She still aches for me, still loves me, still sees my face when she’s fucking you. Has she ever called my name in the dark? Ever whispered it to you in her sleep?

“You’re just … _convenient_. A cold, hard cock in the middle of the night. You know it’s me she really loves. She could never love _you_.”

“Bugger off,” Spike growled at him, letting his head fall forward again. “A bloke can’t get a decent day’s torture ‘round here with you prattling on.”

Angel stepped up close to Spike and leaned in even closer to whisper, “You’re beneath her. You know it. She knows it. She’s not coming for you. You’re nothing to her but a little cold comfort in the dark. You’re not like Xander or Willow or Giles, not someone she _truly_ cares about.”

A low growl rumbled from Spike’s throat. “She loves me, she believes in me, and she promised. Slayer’s not leaving me here. She’s comin’ and she’s gonna beat your arse all the way back t’ hell,” Spike ground out through the pain. He fought back the old, nagging insecurities that this wanker was trying to dredge up. Buffy loved him. He might be beneath her, but she believed in him, she thought he was a champion, and that made all the difference.

“Oh! She _promised_ , did she? Well, we certainly know Buffy never breaks her promises, does she?” First-Angel taunted sarcastically. “She’s never once lied to anyone, has she? Or kept secrets? Or said one thing when she meant another? Oh, no … _not Buffy_!

“There’s only room in her heart for one true love, and that’s me. Always and forever. _Me_ ,” the apparition of Spike’s grandsire informed him gravely.

“And now you think she’s gonna risk her neck to come rescue you … _again_? Just how many times do you think she’ll be willing to do that, Willie-boy? How many times until she remembers the truth of you? You’re nothing but a pathetic, little mama’s boy. You’re the dirt under her feet. You know it and she knows it.”

“She loves me,” Spike insisted again, but his voice cracked a little under the strain of his resolve, and tears sprang to his eyes with the effort. “She believes in me,” he whispered, holding onto her words like a life preserver, literally.

First-Angel snorted sarcastically. “You’ll have plenty of time to convince yourself of that, _Willie_. Because she’s not coming for you.  You’re beneath her.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

_“I’m sorry, Buffy. I could only protect one of you.”_

Buffy’s entire body seemed to collapse in on itself at Willow’s words about not being able to protect Spike, and the witch added quickly, “He’s not dust! He’s … they … the Turok-Han took him!”

The world jerked and shuddered, beginning to rotate again, and Buffy jerked and shuddered with it. A flood of relief washed over her when the words sank in, although her stomach still churned with that feeling of terror, unable to stop now that it had begun. She blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears from falling, but had to wipe her eyes anyway, unable to blink them all back. She let out the breath she’d not realized she was holding and drew in another, finally remembering how to breathe again as her heart jumped and skittered in her chest.

Not that having Spike being held prisoner by that butt-ugly vampire was exactly good news, but it was better than the alternative her mind had first conjured.

“I’m no expert, but I think next time you may want to lead with that,” Kennedy advised Willow, making the witch roll her eyes and sigh.

“We have to go get him,” Buffy announced, jumping up from her chair too quickly. Her head swam, and her ribs shifted painfully, causing her to gasp and lean forward, bracing herself on the table.

“Buffy!” Xander exclaimed again, reaching for her.

“I’m okay,” she assured him through gritted teeth as she began to slowly stand up straighter.

“Buffy, I’m afraid you are in no condition to find and rescue Spike,” Giles admonished her.

“Well, I’m not gonna leave him with The First and let them …” her voice broke and she closed her eyes, swallowing back the new lump that formed in her throat. “I’m not leaving him there,” she insisted after a moment.

“We don’t even know where he is,” Willow told her. “I tried a locator spell and it backfired in the fieriest way possible.”

“I know where he is,” Buffy told them, finally standing up straight. “Or … I have an idea, anyway. There are caves under the old Christmas tree lot. It’s where I fought the Bringers before, where I first met The First.”

“Buffy, I cannot condone this. You are in no condition to fight Bringers, let alone the Turok-Han,” Giles admonished her.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’ve got backup, isn’t it?” she asked, looking around the table at her friends. “Like a big, powerful witch.”

“W-Willow’s tapped out, Buffy,” Tara interceded. “She’s been doing too much magic. She needs to decompress, and get her chakras grounded and centered before things go kablooey.”

Willow looked at Buffy mournfully. “Plus, not so much with the powerful right now. Buffy, I could barely hold that thing off us. If it had kept hammering …” she shook her head again and dropped her gaze, not finishing the thought.

“Tara?” Buffy questioned, looking at the white witch sitting next to Willow.

“Y-you know I would if I could. But if Willow can’t hold it off or hurt it … I don’t have anything near her power. I’m sorry, Buffy,” Tara declined.

“Okay, you and me, Xander,” Buffy continued undeterred, looking at the big man sitting next to her.

“No,” Anya answered for him defiantly. “I’m sorry, but he’s not your little puppy anymore, Buffy. You can’t just take him and toss him into the raging inferno and hope he doesn’t incinerate. He’s mine, I won’t let you.”

“Oh. Wow … whipped much?” Buffy gaped at Xander when he didn’t stop Anya’s protest.

Xander looked up to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry, Buff. I … if it were Dawn or … Willow or …”

“Anyone but Spike,” Buffy filled in angrily.

“Buffy, Xander is correct,” Giles interjected. “I believe your judgment regarding Spike is being colored by your feelings. It seems imprudent to risk—”

“Oh! Well, excuse me!” Buffy rounded on the older man, cutting him off. She bit back a wince of pain from the effort of moving, her anger flaring. “He’s not only my husband, but the strongest warrior we have! We’re going to need him in this fight! He keeps his promises. He stays no matter what. He fights no matter what.

“He doesn’t run away back to England when things get hard around here, unlike _some people_ ,” she snarled, glaring daggers at Giles.

Giles winced, but insisted, “I assure you that I did not ‘run away’ from—”

“I’ll come,” Dawn volunteered, cutting him off. “I’ll help you.”

“I will too,” Kennedy offered. “Tired of sitting around here doing nothing.”

Buffy cast a cold glare over all her friends, who couldn’t meet her eyes, then addressed the two volunteers. “I appreciate it, but you’re just not battle ready … not for this battle.”

“I’ll do it, then,” Mr. Wood offered, standing up. “I’m trained and experienced.”

Buffy shifted her gaze to him suspiciously. “You don’t even know Spike … do you?” she asked, her voice hard and challenging.

“Well, no, not really. But I know you. And I know Slayers. And I’m strong and know how to fight,” he insisted. “I’m not saying I could take on this Turok-Han thing, but I can handle myself. I could maybe get through while you keep it distracted, get Spike and then we get out. I assume that’s what you had in mind?”

“Buffy, I must still protest—” Giles began, but was shut down by her glare.

“Protest noted,” she snarled back at him coldly. Buffy looked around the table, her eyes narrowed in anger. Her hard gaze shifted from one friend to the next as a deafening silence descended on the room; none of them seemed capable of looking her in the eye.

Finally, after what seemed a very long time, she ground out, “ _Everyone’s_ protest is duly noted.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy sat alone on the back steps of her house waiting for Robin to return. He had some gear he said he needed to get from his house before accompanying her on her mission to rescue Spike.

She clasped the ametrine communication amulet that hung around her neck in her right hand, holding it tightly as she closed her eyes and pictured Spike in her mind.

_‘Spike? Can you hear me?’_ she sent out silently.

She waited a few moments, but she heard no reply in her mind. She sighed heavily, but didn’t release her hold on the amulet or open her eyes.

_‘Spike, if you can hear me, know that I believe in you. You’re strong. You’re the strongest warrior we have, the strongest person I’ve ever known. You can handle anything. I won’t let you down, I promise.  Just hang on, okay? For me? I love you and I’ll be there for you. I promise. Do you hear me, Spike? I believe in you. You’re stronger than you know; you can do this. Please just hold on. I swear I won’t let you down.’_

Buffy sat there in silence, concentrating with all her strength, squeezing the amulet until she thought it might crumble into dust, praying for an answer from him. Praying that he had at least heard her. Praying that he knew that she believed in him.

“I love you, Spike,” she whispered aloud, her heart clenching in fear of what he might be going through at this very moment.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmmm … how is this gonna work out? Will Wood double-cross Buffy and try to take Spike out if he gets a chance? Or will he actually help rescue him and THEN try to take him out? And what’s up with her friends not helping her? Will she forgive them or will tensions only escalate? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!! She made a couple of versions for this chapter and we couldn't decide which we liked best, so you get them both!


	66. There Is No Try

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Robin head out to find Spike.

* * *

 

It was early afternoon when Robin pulled Xander’s pickup truck to a stop in the disused Christmas tree lot and Buffy got out to search for the entrance to the underground cavern. She found it relatively quickly, a hole in the ground about two feet across, covered up with a crisscrossing array of heavy, wooden boards. This hole in the ground opened into an underground labyrinth of caves where she hoped to find Spike – where she’d encountered The First and its cronies some years before. She sincerely hoped Spike was here, because she really didn’t have a Plan B to find him if he wasn’t.

As Buffy began kicking through the boards, Robin pulled the truck up near her to use it as an anchor for a rope to descend into the cavern. As Robin was tying the rope to the heavy bumper of the truck, all the boards suddenly gave way under Buffy’s feet. She crashed down ten or twelve feet to the floor of the cave below, landing with a jarring thud on the dirt floor. She couldn’t stop the shriek of pain that escaped her lips when she landed, jolting her bruised and cracked ribs, and jabbing knives of fire into her torso.

“Are you okay?” Robin asked from above as he dropped the rope down, the coiled end of it hitting her in the head, adding insult to injury.

“Swell,” she muttered, closing her eyes to try and slow down the jackhammer that pounded in her brain and the twisting knives that danced a jig in her ribcage.

In a few moments the big man had climbed down the rope and stood next to her. He had geared up with some implements that looked a bit more BDSM than UFC, but who was she to judge? He wore leather gauntlets on his hands, each studded with several hard, steel knurls over his knuckles and fingers. On his right arm, he had also strapped on a steel brace, which ran from his elbow to his wrist to add stability and bring even more power to his punches. The man was built like a brick wall; Buffy hoped he didn’t crumble like one.

They both had stakes and daggers, which Buffy had provided from her own weapons cache, as well as holy water and crosses, although Buffy doubted any of it would be very effective against the uber-vamp. Still, she hadn’t tried holy water or a cross against it, so they were worth a try. She’d also brought a thick painter’s tarp to wrap Spike in in case the sun was still out when they found him. Robin had dropped it on the ground near the end of the rope when he’d started down into the cave. Finally, Robin handed her a headlamp for her to put on, then began strapping his own on.

Buffy gave him an impressed look, but he shrugged. “I don’t have super strength. I need both my hands for weapons. Flashlights are less than effective against vamps.”

Buffy nodded, then took a shallow breath and let it out, unable to breathe any more deeply, and studied the big man. The fact was, she was unsure of his motives for helping her. There was something up with him and Spike, and she was pretty sure she knew what it was. The fact also was that she didn’t have much choice. She didn’t know how to beat the Turok-Han – not yet anyway –  but she couldn’t wait to figure that out. Spike needed her help, and she needed help to get to him.

She refused to just sit idly by while Spike was being tortured by The First’s minions. And she was sure that was what was happening. The memory of the whipped, stabbed, and beaten representations of the demon and human sides of him that she’d met in Spike’s soul were clear in her mind. It made her stomach knot and writhe to think of that happening to her husband now in the flesh.

“You’re clear on the plan?” Buffy asked for the fifth time since leaving her house with the principal, clicking the light on her forehead on.

“Find Spike, get him back here, wrap him in the tarp, get him out of here,” the big man replied, also for the fifth time.

“Spike is not the enemy,” she told him, again. “He’s the strongest warrior we have. I need him to win this. He’s critical to my mission. Do you understand that?”

“I have an IQ of 130 and English _is_ my first language. I grasped it the first four times you told me,” he retorted dryly.

Buffy gave him a hard look, her gaze unwavering. “I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I,” Robin replied, his voice was calm but his dark eyes flashed with annoyance. “I got it. The mission is to get Spike out. I was raised and trained by my mother’s Watcher. I’m well aware of the importance of the mission.”

Buffy studied him another few moments in silence, but finally nodded. “Okay, let’s go,” she agreed as she turned and began to cautiously make her way out of the small chamber and into the maze of connecting tunnels to search for Spike.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“This isn’t good,” Robin observed quietly as they walked, un-challenged, through the maze of tunnels and chambers. “They either aren’t here, or it’s a trap. Stay sharp.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Not my first rodeo,” she hissed back as the tunnel widened into another small chamber. This one had two tunnels leading out of it in opposite directions. Buffy stopped and took a slow breath, trying to clear her mind and focus.

Her eyes sprang open a moment later and she turned to the tunnel on the left. “Spike’s here … so is the uber-vamp, both this way.

“Are you ready for this?” she asked, looking at the big man at her side.

Robin swallowed hard but nodded, then wiped the sweat from his palm and took a new grip on the dagger he carried. “Ready,” he assured her as they both started moving down the narrow passage.

They’d no sooner stepped into the smaller tunnel than their exit was blocked by Bringers coming out of the other tunnel and flooding into the chamber behind them. The blind minions surged in behind Buffy and Robin, two and three abreast like a blockade, completely filling the narrow passage.

The two would-be rescuers turned as one to engage the threat, punching, kicking, slashing, and stabbing in a manic battle against an overwhelming force. Robin was much better than Buffy had hoped, pulling no punches, not hesitating to go for the kill, continuing to attack through punishing blows that would’ve easily dropped a less disciplined and experienced fighter.

Being in the narrow tunnel turned out to be an advantage for Buffy and Robin. The Bringers couldn’t surround them, and they could only come two or three at a time. Although they kept coming, at least the two allies weren’t being overrun by the evil minions’ superior numbers. They did, however, continue to be pushed backwards down the tunnel, leaving a trail of dead and dying Bringers in their wake.

“Vampire!” Buffy warned, feeling the presence of the Turok-Han coming up from the other direction.

“Go! I’ll finish this!” Robin assured her, slashing his blade across yet another Bringer’s throat.

“Find Spike!” Buffy reminded him of his mission, before turning and hurrying down the passageway towards the uber-vamp.

Robin rolled his eyes. “It’s on my to-do list,” he grunted out, stabbing another of the blind mice in the stomach and dropping it into a heap to join its brethren.

Buffy hadn’t gone too far down the tunnel before it opened up into the largest cavern they’d found yet. The large room was bathed in soft light from torches and candles, she could see the whole area clearly. And, on the furthest wall was Spike. Hanging from the stone by chains like a ragdoll, beaten, tortured, cut, burned, bruised and broken. But Spike. Not dust. Her heart leapt into her throat.

“Spike! Can you hear me? I’m here!” she yelled, starting across the open floor towards him.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Spike! Can you hear me? I’m here!” Buffy’s voice cut through the darkness and pain, making Spike slowly blink his eyes open to narrow slits, all he could manage through the swelling.

“Knew you’d come,” he muttered, letting his eyes fall closed again, relief washing over him, the promise of this pain ending soon a balm to his battered body and abused soul.

“Oh, you thought I came to … what? Rescue you?” Buffy scoffed, folding her arms over her chest. “Honestly, Spike, how many times do you expect me to save you? You really think you’re worth all this trouble?

“Sorry, but, you need to face the truth: you just aren’t that good.”

“Wha—?” Spike groaned, lifting his head to look at her. He blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. It was Buffy … or was it? He’d been fooled before. He let his eyes fall closed and concentrated on _feeling_ her, on that dangerous tingling sensation that scurried up and down his spine when she was near.

His eyes flew open despite his swollen lids. He _could_ feel her. It _was_ Buffy. “Buffy… I … tried…”

“Blah, blah, blah,” she mocked. “You always _try_ , don’t you, Spike? You tried to keep Glory away from Dawn, to keep her from opening the portal. How’d that go again? Oh, right! I had to kill myself to fix it.

“And going to get your soul all sparkly and bright. That went well, didn’t it? Who had to come to the rescue then? Huh? I can’t hear you…” she taunted. “Oh, it was me … almost dying, again, to save you.

“How many times have you tried and failed? This is just one in a long list of botched plans and disappointments. Another of your many fuck-ups.

“Well, guess what, _Luke_? Do or do not, trying doesn’t cut it anymore. I’m done spending my time mopping up after you,” she asserted coldly. “So, yeah, you can just stay here and rot. I’ll save the world – again – without any so-called _help_ from you. Thank you very much.”

“Buffy … I …” he stammered, tears filling his eyes, his heart crumbling beneath the blows inflicted by her words.

“Save it, Spike. I don’t want apologies. I don’t want your undying love. I don’t want anything from you. Ever again. This thing – you and me? It’s over. I’m done with your pathetic, dismal incompetence,” she declared frostily.

“Buffy …” Spike begged, his voice nothing more than a faint, forlorn echo of his breaking heart.

“I really should’ve known better to have ever let you in. We both know that you’re beneath me, and you’ve done nothing but prove that over and over again.

“I need someone I can count on to not get wailed on and weepy … someone strong, like Angel. You’ve never been anything but a poor substitute for him.” Buffy snorted derisively and turned away from him, heading out of the cavern.

“Buffy … please,” Spike begged, but she didn’t turn around or even slow her steps.

Spike’s head fell limply, his chin hitting his chest, as a sob wracked his body. The pain in his heart and soul overshadowing the agony in his flesh. Of course, she was right. He’d done nothing but fail her, broken his promises to her, hurt her.

And, of course, he was beneath her. He always had been and would always be unworthy of her. The day he’d always dreaded had finally come: she’d realized her mistake and corrected it. He’d be nothing but an insignificant footnote in the story of her life now, buried and forgotten, as she moved on.

When the blow to his jaw finally came it was a welcome relief, sending him back into the deep, dark abyss of oblivion.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

_‘Spike! Can you hear me? I’m here!_ ’

Buffy’s cry still echoed in the large cavern when she was jerked back by a powerful hand clamped around her neck before she’d made it two steps toward her husband. The Turok-Han yanked her off her feet, holding her in the air like a doll, carrying her back into the tunnel, away from Spike. Buffy kicked at it and slashed her dagger towards its face, but the thing had a reach longer than an NBA All-Star, and her arms were woefully short in comparison.

Buffy pulled the squirt bottle of holy water from her coat pocket and squeezed it directly into the vamp’s eyes, bathing its ugly face in the blessed liquid. The Turok-Han screeched, its skin burning, and flung her against the nearest wall in angry frustration.

Buffy’s breath was jarred out in a ‘whoof’ of agony, her bruised and broken ribs cracking further against the solid rock. She bounced off the unforgiving stone, stunned and disoriented, tumbling to the dirt floor like a sack of laundry. The dirt was a relief compared to the hard stone, it felt invitingly soft against her battered body. Before she gave in to the pain, one burning thought rose to the surface of her befuddled mind: Spike. Spike was near. He was hurt. He needed her.

Buffy scrambled back to her feet, her head spinning woozily, but her determination steadfast. “Robin! Down here! Spi—”

Buffy’s words were cut off abruptly as the uber-vamp smashed a round-house punch into her jaw, sending her flying back down the tunnel, further away from Spike and Robin.

She landed and slid, careening off the walls like an out-of-control bobsled, before coming to rest against a cool, smooth rock. Oh … that felt heavenly. Stillness. To just not move. The stone was so smooth and cool against her cheek. Just rest … a minute.

The image of Spike hanging from the wall flashed in Buffy’s mind and she roused herself again, staggering to her feet in the dark. Her light was … she felt her forehead. The light was smashed into nothing but shards of plastic. She pulled the strap off and dropped it, then reached into her pockets. A stake and a cross were all she had left in the way of weapons. She wished she had a vat of holy water, that might slow the fucker down, at least. But she didn’t.

She basically had nothing. She just hoped that would be enough. Enough to distract the vamp long enough for Robin to find Spike and get him out.

Buffy began backing up slowly in the dark, keeping all her senses focused in the direction she’d come, in the direction her senses told her the Turok-Han still was.

“Come on, you fucker … come away from Spike. Come get me,” she muttered. She closed her eyes since they were of no use in the dark anyway, and concentrated all her other senses on the uber-vamp.

Buffy ducked just as the Turok-Han swung one of its bony fists at her face, dropping to the ground and kicking a leg out at what she hoped was its knee. There was a satisfying ‘crunch’ that lifted the Slayer’s spirits, but her small victory was short-lived. The vamp stomped his massive foot down on her back, smashing Buffy to the ground beneath it. All the air left her lungs again, and her ribs and spine made the same crunching sound as the vamp’s knee had a moment before.

Buffy stabbed her stake up into the big creature’s leg, trying for the groin but probably hitting lower, unable to aim in the dark. The vamp roared in annoyance and pain, and lifted its foot off the Slayer’s back. She rolled away, grunting with the effort, but determined to get out of reach of the Turok-Han, left with nothing but a small cross to defend herself with.

In a move that surprised the uber-vamp, as soon as Buffy gained her feet, she charged it like a linebacker preparing to tackle a quarterback, screeching in fury. She’d hoped to catch it off guard, to perhaps get her stake back or at least drive it into its flesh deeper, hobbling it. Unfortunately, instead of a linebacker hitting a quarterback, the outcome was more like Wile E. Coyote running into a solid rock wall that had been realistically painted to look like a tunnel.

Buffy staggered, knocked back by the solid mass of vampire. She was undeterred, though. She swung first with her right and then her left fist, connecting solidly with the bony torso of the large vamp. It staggered back a step with each desperate punch the Slayer threw. Buffy grunted with pain and effort, but continued her barrage of fear-and-fury powered punches, driving the Turok-Han back down the dark tunnel. 

Buffy saw a light flash behind the vampire – not candlelight, but the light of Robin’s headlamp coming toward the chamber where Spike was. Her heart skittered with hope, and she kicked at the vamp’s knee trying to take it down so she could retrieve her stake from its leg. There was another satisfying crunch of bone and cartilage and a screech of pain from the uber-vamp.

Buffy took a chance, darting in to try and find her stake, but in the dark she couldn’t see it, and she was too slow. A swipe of the Turok-Han’s bony, powerful hand knocked her against the wall again, the vamp’s long, sharp claws digging gouges in her cheek, from eye to chin.

Buffy’s head smacked against the hard stone and stars flashed in her vision as the world began to tilt and whirl beneath her. Her cheek burned with the slashes from the uber-vamp’s claws and her ribs seemed to shift into new and interesting configurations of agony. She dropped down hard on her butt, trying to breathe, trying to stop the ground from spinning, trying to get the little cartoon birdies to stop chirping dazedly in her ears.

She was getting really tired of decorating the rocks in here with her blood. You’d think The First could recruit an actual, evil interior decorator to handle that. A couple of throw cushions for her to land on here and there would be a welcome addition to the décor, too.

Buffy could feel the Turok-Han stalking toward her and she began to crab-walk backwards, away from it. Her hand closed over a rock in the path and she picked it up and flung it blindly in the dark, hoping it might at least distract it a moment so she could stand up.

But, as with everything else she’d tried against it, all that seemed to do was annoy the damn thing. It was on her in two long strides and the next time its leg came forward it kicked her hard enough to send her flying through the air. She tumbled through the darkness, head over heels. For a moment it almost felt like she was flying – free and weightless – but, as with all her experiences with flying, the landing was less enjoyable.

Sharp outcroppings of stone stabbed into her back when she hit the wall, ripping through her clothes and puncturing her skin, embedding shards of sharp rock into her body like arrowheads. She grunted painfully when she fell from the wall down to the ground, all those points digging in deeper, sending jolts of excruciating pain searing through her body. She could hear and feel the big vamp closing on her again, but she had nothing left to give. Simply breathing seemed like too much effort. Moving was beyond imagining.

“Buffy! Let’s go! Get up! Move!” Robin demanded, as a shower of light shone over her. The big man grabbed her beneath her arms and began dragging her backwards down the tunnel.

She tried to get her feet under herself just to keep the back of her body from dragging and driving the sharp stones deeper into her flesh, if for no other reason.

“Hurry! It’s coming!” he urged her, but she couldn’t move any faster or do any more than she was.

Or, at least she thought she couldn’t. That changed when she felt the uber-vamp’s claws raking at her boots, and another surge of Slayer-strength adrenaline exploded through her veins. She got her feet underneath herself and turned, pulling free of the big man’s hold.

“RUN!” she exhorted him, grabbing his arm and tugging him with her as she bolted down the dark tunnel using the light from his headlamp to guide her steps.

They seemed to reach the chamber where their escape rope hung faster than she’d thought possible. She grabbed the blood-soaked dagger from Robin’s hand and urged him up the rope as she turned and waited for the uber-vamp to appear.

“Buffy! Come on!” he called as he reached the opening and pulled himself free of the earth and onto the grass outside.

Buffy jumped, grasping the rope about halfway up its length and began to climb frantically for the safety of the sun above. She thought she was going to make it, her head just appearing above ground, when she was yanked back by a strong hand on one foot.

She shrieked in frustration and fright, kicking at the vamp with her free foot as she struggled to keep hold of the rope and pull free from its grasp. Then she heard Xander’s truck start and the gearbox grind as it was put into reverse. She clung to the rope with all her strength as she was hauled out of the cavern by the powerful truck, leaving the Turok-Han with nothing but her empty boot to gnaw on. Damn, she liked those boots.

As soon as she was free, she let go of the rope and slid to a stop on the cool, soft grass. It felt like heaven compared to the dark, hard rocks she’d been battered on below. She let her eyes close, lying on her stomach, and just tried to get her breathing and heartrate back under control. But, as soon as the surge of adrenaline began to wane, all the pain of her innumerable injuries returned, and her head began to swim again under the strain.

“Buffy … God, Buffy …” Robin gasped when he saw her, bloodied and beaten, after getting the truck stopped and running back to where she lay in the grass.

“Tis … but a … scratch,” she gasped through the blinding bursts of red and white light that peppered her vision.

“Spike?” she asked through the building fog of agony that was threatening to engulf her.

“I got close, but couldn’t get to him. More Bringers came up from the other way. I had to retreat, go all the way around down that other tunnel to …”

Buffy didn’t hear any more. The pain in her soul overwhelming her, dragging her down into a bottomless pit of darkness where she could, thankfully, feel no pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, no! Now Buffy is even more injured and Spike thinks Buffy has left him! How can he continue to hold up against the torture with a broken heart and no hope of rescue?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Buckle up and hold on, kiddos! It's going to get worse before it gets better! Eeep! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	67. State of Emergency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy declares a state of emergency. New Potentials join the mix. Dawn nearly lets something slip that she shouldn't. Xander's geek is showing.
> 
> Some original dialogue from the episode: ‘Get It Done’ written by Douglas Petrie

 

“How many times can the Slayer get beat up like this and still, you know, survive?” Kennedy asked the group gathered in the Summers’ living room later that night.

Giles rubbed tiredly at his eyes while Willow and Tara exchanged a worried look.

Xander answered earnestly, “Buffy’s tough, she’s the Slayer – she’ll heal and—”

“And then what? Get beat up again?” asked Rona, another Potential Slayer who had arrived a couple of days previously. Rona was an African-American with long dreadlocks, no Watcher, a cynical outlook, and an outspoken manner. She’d arrived via bus while Buffy had been down after her first round with the Turok-Han in the school basement. “If she’s getting beat-down this bad, how are we supposed to survive?”

“You aren’t expected to—” Giles began.

“Survive?” Rona shot back sarcastically.

“ _Fight_ ,” the ex-Watcher retorted in a clipped tone. “That is Buffy’s role.”

“Well, she’s doing a bang-up job of it,” Rona snapped back. “Literally.”

“Be that as it may, she seems to have kept you from being slaughtered thus far,” Giles defended crossly. 

“Sure, but for how long?” Kennedy jumped in. “I mean … The First didn’t go to all that trouble to let that ugly vampire out just for giggles and shits. We’re just sitting ducks here! All gathered up like fish in a barrel waiting to be taken out.”

Giles began to reply, but was interrupted by a very beaten, bruised, and battered Slayer saying, “She’s not wrong.”

All eyes turned to see Buffy and Dawn standing at the bottom of the stairs. Dawn looked angry and insulted on behalf of her sister; Buffy looked exhausted beneath the deep gouges and swollen bruises that adorned her face.

“Buffy’s not stupid! We have a pl—!” Dawn began angrily, but Buffy elbowed the girl in the ribs, stopping her unthinking revelation to the Potentials that they did, indeed, have a plan, and despite everything, they were going to stick to it.

“We have a place to start,” Buffy filled in, looking at Robin. “Emergency kit? I think it’s time to break it out. I’m declaring a state of emergency.”

Robin nodded and got up from his seat to retrieve a large, leather duffel bag from the foyer. The big man hadn’t escaped unscathed either. One eye was swollen nearly shut and there was a slash across one cheek, probably from a Bringer’s blade. He walked with a slight limp as he crossed the room, clutching at his back and wincing as he moved. With slow, deliberate steps, he brought the duffel into the living room and set it down gently on the coffee table. After depositing it on the table, he backed up gingerly and regained his seat a few feet away with a small grunt of pain.

Xander, sitting on the couch nearest the bag, opened it and began pulling items out. He held up something that looked like an old, wooden boomerang first, showing it to everyone.

“I never knew Captain Boomerang was a Slayer!” Andrew exclaimed from the chair he was tied to. “No wonder Amanda Waller wanted him on the Suicide Squad! That makes him doubly cool! Being from down under with that oh-so-hot accent, deadly with a boomerang, and a Slayer, too! Wow!”

“What is he talking about?” Buffy asked, confused and exasperated. “And can we make him stop?”

“Captain Boomerang was a jerk and a screw-up – and he was _not_ a Slayer!” Xander argued with the geek, ignoring Buffy. “He did nothing when Mindboggler was shot in the back! He could have easily saved her – how can you think he was a Slayer? Plus – Slayers are all girls!”

“Maybe he was a girl in disguise,” Andrew suggested conspiratorially. 

“Okay … now what are _you_ talking about?” Buffy demanded of Xander.

“Oh … errr … nothing, it’s nothing,” her friend stammered, embarrassed, setting the boomerang down and glaring daggers at Andrew.

Buffy rubbed her head, trying to get the ball of fire that was currently careening around her brain like said boomerang to take out the stabbing pain behind her eyes. It wasn’t cooperating, in fact the two seemed to be conspiring and feeding off each other, getting worse.

“What else is in there? I don’t think a boomerang will help,” she ground out, stepping forward to get a better look.

Xander pulled out an urn, while Dawn, who’d moved up with Buffy, pulled out an old book.

“Nothing we haven’t really seen before,” Xander mused.

“Wait, what’s that box?” Buffy asked, reaching down to touch a heavy, metal box that looked like it might’ve been forged during the Iron Age.

“I don’t know,” Robin answered, standing back up and moving nearer. “It hasn’t been opened since…”

Buffy yanked down on the small padlock on the box, breaking it easily.

“… well, now, I guess,” Robin finished, leaning closer to see what was in it.

Xander opened the box and pulled out some flat, heavy, iron figures that looked like scary puppets. “Ummm … a puppet show? Sounds fun, but not sure how that will help.”

“They aren’t puppets,” Dawn interjected, looking through the book she’d retrieved. “They’re called ‘shadow casters’.  You put them in motion, and they tell you a story. It says you can't just watch, you have to see.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Anya wondered.

“It's cryptic. I don't like it,” Xander declared. “Every time instructions get cryptic, someone gets hurt – usually me.”

“You can't just watch, you have to see? See what?” Buffy asked, looking at Dawn.

“That's where all my fancy translating skills break down, but I think it's an origin myth. The story of the very first Slayer,” Dawn explained, looking at the book.

“I-I saw her, the other night ... or day … whenever it was, in my dream,” Buffy revealed. “That can’t be a coincidence.

“Can you work it?” Buffy asked, looking at Dawn.

“Ummm, yeah, I think so. Maybe Giles can help with some of the translations?” she asked, looking at the ex-Watcher.

Giles nodded in answer to Dawn, but addressed Buffy. “We do not know what this will manifest. It could be quite dangerous,” he warned her.

“More dangerous than an uber-vamp that’s kicked my ass twice?” Buffy retorted. “I’ll take my chances.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

In Buffy’s darkened living room, with the furniture moved back against the walls, Xander lit the wick on the base of the shadow caster turntable. The light cast a bright, golden glow over the room, allowing Buffy to look around at her friends and family. Giles, Anya, Xander, Willow, Tara, and Dawn were there, along with Robin and three of the stronger Potential Slayers: Kennedy, Rona, and Amanda.

Amanda had only arrived a couple of nights ago – about the same time as Rona – while Buffy had been recovering from the first Turok-Han attack, but Buffy knew her already. The girl went to Sunnydale High, she lived on the freaking Hellmouth, and she’d already staked her first vampire, with no actual training at all. As Andrew might say, if he weren’t gagged and tied up in the basement, ‘The Force is strong in this one.’

Even with all her friends here, Buffy felt horribly alone. This fight was on her shoulders, and she felt woefully unprepared for the challenge. She didn’t even have Spike to say just the right thing to lift her spirits and make her feel like the world wasn’t actually ending on her watch. Which is exactly how it felt – she was failing. Despite her outward bravado, she knew she was failing. Failing the world. Failing her friends. Failing Dawn. Failing Spike. And she didn’t know how to fix it.

‘ _It is not enough_ ,’ the First Slayer had said to her. Buffy snorted to herself. _‘It is not enough … more like_ I _am not enough.’_

And her friends knew it, too. She could see it in their demeanors, hear it in their voices. They were scared. Who could blame them? The way they looked at her, like she should be doing more, doing a better job, hurt. It made her feel that much more isolated and alone.

“OK,” Dawn was saying from her place next to Xander and the shadow caster turntable. “According to this, I think you put those puppet guys on one by one. They cast shadows and the shadows tell the story. First, there is the Earth.”

Xander picked up a representation of the Earth and placed it on the base. Suddenly, tribal drums began to sound all around them, filling the room. Everyone looked around, eyes wide, hearts pounding.

“OK, so far, so creepy,” Xander muttered.

“Hmm … uhhh … OK,” Dawn stammered, looking back at the book.  “Then, there came the demons.”

Xander placed the puppet of the demons on the base and turned it one notch, moving the shadows over the walls around them. Muffled growls and snarls joined the sound of the drums, but Dawn kept going, reading the instructions from the book.

“After demons, there came men. Men found a girl. And the men took the girl to fight the demon ... err … _all_ demons. They … they chained her to the Earth,” she translated from the ancient book.

Xander added each shadow caster in turn, each one adding a new sound to the growing cacophony surrounding them. Screams and snarls, drums and the sound of whipping wind enveloped them as the puppets spun slowly around, the shadows they cast seeming to take on life of their own on the walls surrounding them, moving, shifting, telling the story.

“And then, and I … I can't read this. Something about darkness,” Dawn stammered

“What about darkness? Giles? What about darkness!?” Buffy demanded, moving closer to Dawn.

Dawn began to hand the book to Giles, but suddenly the ancient Sumerian text translated itself into English and she began to read frantically, “It says you cannot be shown. You cannot just watch, but you must see. See for yourself, but only if you're willing to make the exchange.”

“But what does it mean?” Xander asked as the base began to spin faster and faster all on its own, the shadows growing, moving, seeming to come alive on the walls around them. The sound, too, continued to increase in volume, screams and growls, muffled words and the beating of drums becoming almost deafening.

Suddenly, a portal opened in the center of the flame, growing in size as the shadows continued to spin around the room threateningly.

“It means I have to go in there,” Buffy realized, stepping forward toward the portal.

“No, it doesn't! Where does it say that? It doesn't say that!” Willow objected, panicked.

“Buffy, I must agree with Willow,” Giles said, moving to intercept her. “You do not even know what you're exchanging. You do not know if you're ready yet. You are still injured, you are ill-prepared—”

“When have I ever been prepared?” Buffy demanded of her ex-Watcher. “It’s up to me. I have to do this.”

“No!” Willow objected again, still panicked. “Buffy, we don't know where you're going or how we'll get you back.”

“Find a way,” Buffy instructed, before jumping through the glimmering light of the portal and disappearing, the portal closing behind her with a ‘ _snap’_ , leaving the room in silent darkness.

“Oh, dear Lord,” Giles muttered, removing his glasses and rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

“What was that about an exchange?” Anya asked, looking around apprehensively.

Another flash of bright light filled the room at her words and a large, growling demon appeared in the spot where Buffy had disappeared. It was easily seven feet tall and built like a Mr. Universe contestant, with strange, large tusks growing out of its bottom lip. Its hairless, grey-green skin looked muddy and dull in the low light. Even its hair was hairless – long twisting tendrils of skin adorned with bones and shells hung from its head, making the overall impression one to invoke terror in even the staunchest demon fighter.

“Ah, this must be the exchange student,” Xander quipped before the demon grabbed him and flung him like a doll into the furthest wall.

“Willow! Do something!” Dawn exclaimed as Giles stepped forward, delivering a roundhouse punch into the creature’s jaw. The blow did nothing but center the demon’s attention on the ex-Watcher. A reciprocating blow from the demon to Giles’ jaw sent the man sprawling, knocked out cold, next to Xander.

Suddenly, the three Potentials, along with Robin Wood, attacked the demon as one, surrounding it, each with a dagger or sword in their hands. They darted in, stabbing and slashing at it, then backed away when it turned on them, keeping out of reach of its long arms.

“ _Willow_ … do something!” Dawn demanded again, the words a near-growl in the girl’s throat.

“Ummm … right … uhhh … _Impedimentia! Contineo! Capio! Saxeus!”_ the red witch invoked, grabbing Tara’s hand for extra power and grounding support, just as the demon roared and charged at Rona.

The large demon’s feet stopped moving, as did the rest of it, as if it had been turned to stone. It fell forward, crushing the Potential Slayer beneath its weight.  

Rona screamed and squirmed, trying to push the horrible thing off her, finally managing to slide out and roll away, breathless and frightened, but basically unhurt.

“Get Spike’s shackles, and … and ropes … chains … anything!” Willow yelled at them. “I don’t know how long the spell will hold it!”

Everyone still on their feet scurried to comply, coming back with anything they could find to chain, tie, shackle, or otherwise confine the demon, going to extra lengths to constrain it than were probably necessary. Finally, satisfied that it would not escape if or when the spell failed, they turned their attention to Giles and Xander.

Both men were starting to come around, woozy and dazed, against the far wall.

“Are you guys alright?” Willow asked, kneeling next to Giles as Anya came to Xander’s aid.

Both men moaned, holding their heads, trying to get the little cartoon birdies to stop flying around.

“Like old times,” Giles said at last, feeling around the floor to find his glasses. “I had forgotten how lovely it is to be knocked out.”

“I told you cryptic is never good,” Xander muttered. “I hate it when I’m right.”

“Thankfully, those occurrences are few and far between,” Giles mocked, finding his glasses still in one piece, if a little bent, and putting them back on, only slightly askew.

“Now what?” Willow asked, looking at Giles for instruction.

Giles leaned back against the wall that had a Xander-sized hole smashed in it and closed his eyes. “Now what, indeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What choices will Buffy make with the Shadow Men? We’ll find out next.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Buckle up and hold on, kiddos! It's STILL going to get worse before it gets better! Eeep! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	68. It is Not Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy meets the Shadow Men and has a few things to say to them, like, a Limo waiting at the portal for her would’ve been the courteous thing to do.
> 
> Some original dialogue from the episode: ‘Get It Done’ written by Douglas Petrie

* * *

 

* * *

 

Buffy tumbled through the portal, landing in a dry, sandy desert. She blinked against the bright light shining down and wondered for a moment if she’d been transported back into Spike’s soul, but no. She’d actually seen this place before, or something very nearly the same, when she’d communed in the vision quest with The First Slayer before facing the hell god, Glory.

She got to her feet, shading her eyes against the sun, and looked around the desolate landscape, which was filled with sand, boulders, and cactus, and little else. She tried to figure out where she was supposed to go, or what she was supposed to do now, as she turned in a slow circle, getting her bearings.

Buffy waited a few minutes for a guide of some sort to show up, but nothing ever appeared, so she sighed and just set off walking in a random direction.

“Okay, walking. Walking should be fun,” she muttered, rubbing a hand over her bruised and cracked ribs. The action reminded her of all her other injuries that she’d been mostly ignoring: the puncture wounds all down the back of her body from being slammed against the sharp rocks in the cave, the multiple lumps on her head, the gouges and bruises on her face, her bruised and swollen knuckles, not to mention all the smaller scrapes and bruises that adorned her flesh.

“Fun,” she repeated, pushing the pain back into its little box for now. “Not really a very efficient way to run things if you ask me,” she informed a large boulder as she passed, but it didn’t seem to take any notice of her criticism.

After walking for some time, Buffy finally came across three middle-aged black men clothed in African tribal dress sitting in a circle on the sand. Each man held a long staff, or walking stick, in their hands, adorned near the top with strings holding feathers, shells, and beads.

“Hello? I'm Buffy. I'm the Slayer,” she said tentatively, moving closer to them.

One of the men in a red turban spoke to her in a strange language, but the words were somehow translated into English in her mind. “We know who you are.”

“And we know why you're here,” another man said.

“We've been waiting,” the third man informed her.

“Yeah, well, you could’ve met me closer to the gate and you wouldn’t have had to wait so long,” she observed. “A limo and some road signs wouldn’t have hurt, either.”

“We have been waiting many lifetimes,” the second man, who wore a blue turban, explained.

“Oh, well … I’ve only been the Slayer this one, so not my fault,” she retorted.

“We have been here since the beginning,” the first man in the red turban clarified.

“Now, we are almost at the end,” the third man, in a black turban, added.

“The end of what?” Buffy asked suspiciously as the men stood up and began to slowly walk in a circle around her.

“You are the Hellmouth's last guardian,” the third man in the black turban informed her.

“ _Latest_. You mean _latest_ guardian,” Buffy insisted.

“No,” the first man corrected. “Last.”

“OK, um, I have The First to fight, I guess you know that? So just tell me what I need to know. I came to learn,” Buffy requested, watching them as they walked in a slow, close circle around her.

“We cannot give you knowledge. Only power,” the second man told her.

Buffy nodded. “Okay, power … power is of the good,” she agreed. “Will I be able to defeat The First with it?”

“You are the Hellmouth’s last guardian,” the third man repeated, making Buffy roll her eyes.

“What is it with you guys and the cryptic?” she asked sarcastically. “Can’t you just answer a fucking—”

Her words were cut off when the man in the black turban struck her over the head with his staff, adding yet another goose-egged sized knot to her skull and knocking her out.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy woke in a cave, chained to the Earth, or, well actually to a large slab of solid rock. “Didn’t really need a new bump on my head,” she muttered, reaching for it with her shackled hand.

“You know I’ll be returning the favor when I get loose, don’t you?” she threatened the three men who stood several feet away from her, watching and waiting for her to awaken.

Buffy got to her feet and tugged on the chains, but they didn’t give. Renewed pain shot through her torso with the motion and she subsided in her struggles, glaring at the men.

“Now what?” she demanded. “You have some fun torture gizmos you’re just dying to try out?”

“The First Slayer did not talk so much,” the red turbaned man observed.

The black turbaned man stated, “We are the beginning. The source of your strength. The well of the Slayer's power. This is why we have brought you here.”

The first man with the red turban picked up a box that looked much like the one in the Slayer emergency kit.  “Herein lies your truest strength.  The energy of the demon. Its spirit. Its heart.”

Buffy gritted her teeth. “This is how you created the Slayer? With the spirit of a demon?”

“Yes, the spirit of one of the last pure demons,” the red turbaned man answered, opening the lid of the box. A cloud of black energy rose from the box, swirling and twining in the air, serpentine and surreal.

“Wait!” Buffy objected, tugging at her chains in earnest again. “You’re turning me into … a demon? A pure demon? There has to be another way! What … what about my soul?”

“There is no other way. This is the source of your power, this is your ultimate strength,” the black turbaned man told her. “Your soul will remain. Your strength and power will be magnified, amplified, augmented.”

“But … if that darkness goes inside me,” she stammered. “How will I … control it?”

“You are the Slayer. You have been Chosen,” the second man with the blue turban explained.

“Goddamn it! What does that mean?” Buffy demanded.

“You are the Slayer. Darkness and light are one within you. You are the balance,” the first man said as the cloud of dark energy descended on her, wrapping around her, engulfing her.

Buffy felt the energy pour into her, dark and malevolent. It felt like undiluted evil pouring into her soul, darker than anything she’d felt before, darker even than the demon within Spike’s soul. She screamed, thrashing against her chains as it consumed her, filling every corner of her soul with pure, blinding darkness.

Spike’s words to her all those months ago rang in her mind, ‘ _You’re a helluva woman, Buffy. The darkness won’t take you. Never known anyone stronger than you, luv, no one who tries harder or cares more, but still don’t know how you do it. How you … live in the light after ... that.’_

_The darkness won’t take you. The darkness won’t take you._ Spike’s deep, heartfelt voice repeated in her mind as the malevolent power flowed into her, strengthening and healing her body, pouring its mystical power over her like a black onyx waterfall. She wanted and needed the strength it offered her, but the darkness threatened to overwhelm her, to pull her under, to turn her into a monster.

“SPIKE!” she screamed for him, even knowing he was worlds away. It was all she could think to do, he was the only life raft in the sea of darkness she had to cling to. He was the one that helped her fight the darkness. Always him. How could she do it now without him here with her?

_‘You’re the strongest person I know. The darkness won’t take you. You’re the only thing I’ve ever believed in. You’re a helluva woman, Buffy,’_ his reassuring voice rang again in her mind, strengthening her soul, and she felt a small flicker of light begin to glow within the dark abyss that was threatening to consume her.

_‘It is not enough,’_ the First Slayer’s words came next, along with the vision of the unending stream of Turok-Han waiting to consume humanity. _‘It is not enough.’_

Buffy steeled herself, clinging desperately onto Spike’s words like a life preserver in a churning sea, onto his undying love, onto his unwavering confidence in her, and took in all the dark power the shadow men offered her. The power swirled, eddied, and churned inside her like a river of blackness. She could feel it trying to take over, to control her, but the light of fervent devotion that Spike had sparked in her remained fierce and stalwart amid the darkness. Spike was her beacon of hope, of goodness, of love. That light was eternal, burning bright, and would not allow the dark power to consume her.

Buffy dropped to her knees, breathless and gasping for air, but also surging with power, with strength, and boundless energy the likes of which she’d never felt before. Every ache, pain, and agonizing wound was gone, she could barely even remember what pain felt like.  Everything seemed sharper, crisper – sights, sounds, smells, even the feel of the hard rock beneath her seemed somehow more vibrant.

“You are the last guardian of the Hellmouth,” the red turbaned man repeated.

“You will prevail, or you will fail. In either case, it will be done,” the second man intoned. “It is up to you now.”

Buffy stood up and tugged lightly on the chains holding her. They snapped like they were made of tissue paper beneath her augmented strength, falling away from her wrists.

“If The First wins, he’ll wipe out the Slayer line,” she noted. “If I win … what? We won’t need any more Slayers? You won’t have to violate any more girls, ruin anyone else’s life with this … _Calling_?”

“You are the last guardian of the Hellmouth,” the red turbaned man repeated cryptically for the third time.

“Oh, my God!” Buffy exclaimed, walking toward the men. “No wonder you needed a girl to fight the demons! You don’t know how to do anything but talk in circles and riddles! You’re weak, pathetic, pencil-dicked cowards who can’t even give someone a straight freaking answer!”

The red turbaned man opened his mouth to speak, but Buffy cut him off. “If you say I am the ‘last guardian of the Hellmouth’ one more time, I’m going to shove my fist down your throat.”

“The First Slayer was less hostile and more respectful,” the red turbaned man observed.

“Maybe if she’d been a little less respectful and took you down, a lot of girls would’ve been able to live normal, happy lives instead of short, violent, lonely ones,” Buffy retorted.

“Yes. And what of the multitudes of humankind that would not have had that luxury – girls, boys, men, and women alike? How many times would the world have been overrun with demons if not for the Slayer? Just in your lifetime, how many threats have been averted? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one,” the blue turbaned man argued.

“Are you seriously quoting ‘Star Trek’ to me?” Buffy asked, astonished.

“I am stating the truth. Someone must stand between the evil and the good. In every generation there is a Chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer,” the blue turbaned man replied.

Buffy sighed, clearly frustrated. “Yada, yada, yada,” Buffy mocked. “Why a girl?”

The men looked at each other a moment, then the black turbaned one said, “Because you are the ones with a spirit strong enough to balance on the razor’s edge and not be overwhelmed by the darkness within. Your light burns brighter than the corrupting allure of power.”

“Oh, please,” Buffy scoffed, rolling her eyes. “You never met Faith. Want. Take. Have.”

Suddenly, a glimmering portal opened off to one side of the cave and a huge, angry demon sailed through it, landing with a crash in front of the men. Buffy looked from the portal to the demon, who was struggling in layers of bindings, including the manacles Spike had made for _her_. Damn it! Did people have no respect for personal property?

But, she was over it in an instant. She snatched at the ropes, chains and manacles holding the huge creature, breaking them all easily, and releasing it. The demon roared in frustration and anger, and turned on the men, flinging the black turbaned man several feet across the cave and into a stone wall.

“Well, nice knowin’ ya,” Buffy called to the men as she ran toward the portal. “Would love to stay and chat in unhelpful, cryptic circles some more, but I think this is my ride.

“Here’s your demon back. Keep the deposit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank goodness at least Buffy has Spike's love to hold onto, even if he's been stripped of that comfort by The First. Will Buffy’s extra power be enough to defeat the Turok-Han?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Buckle up and hold on, kiddos! It's STILL going to get worse before it gets better! (yes, still, this is not a drill!) I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	69. Buffy and Spike 2.0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are changing .... for better or worse. Till death do us part?

* * *

 

“Buffy!” her friends exclaimed in relief when she appeared in the living room, replacing the thrashing, growling demon that they’d collectively shoved back through. But, their relief was short-lived as exclamations of…

“Your hair!”

“Your face!”

“Your eyes!”

“Your teeth!”

… rang out.

“What? What’s wrong with…?” the Slayer began, hurrying over to the mirror near the front door to look.

“Oh, shit,” she muttered as glowing cat eyes, bright red and flecked with sparkling gold, stared back at her. She touched her shiny, raven-black hair, and then ran her fingers over her brow and cheekbones which were dusted with irregular dark spots, like a leopard’s. Lastly, she pulled her top lip back to reveal two small fangs, which replaced her canines, though the rest of her teeth were normal.

“What happened?!” Dawn asked in alarm as the whole group followed her into the foyer.

“I … I …” Buffy stammered, still staring into the mirror in disbelief. “Those bastards… they didn’t say a damn thing about this!”

“Who?! What happened?” Willow repeated Dawn’s question.

Buffy took a deep breath and turned to her concerned friends. “I got an upgrade. I guess I got a makeover thrown in for free,” she explained dourly. “Cryptic bastards.”

“What precisely do you mean by an ‘upgrade’?” Giles asked, his voice concerned.

Buffy looked around and found a length of heavy chain that had been left-over from the demon constraints. She picked it up and snapped it in two with just two fingers, as if it were made of glass instead of heavy steel.

“A new and improved, heavy-duty Slayer,” she explained as the two ends of the chain fell to the floor and she held out the broken link in her palm for Giles to see.

“I see…” Giles murmured. “And … how was this accomplished?”

“The same way the First Slayer was ‘ _accomplished’_ ,” Buffy told him derisively. “With black magic … an infusion of pure demonic power.”

“You’re … a demon now?” Dawn stammered, taking a step back, startled and a little frightened.

“Apparently, I’ve always been a demon. Now I just have more dark, creamy, demony filling,” Buffy retorted, heading for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Giles asked.

“To see if I can do anything about this,” she explained, waving her hands around her head. “And then to test out the new and improved Buffy 2.0 and get Spike back.”

“Let’s hope Buffy 2.0 is better than Windows 2.0,” Willow muttered, sounding worried, as Buffy disappeared upstairs.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 “Well, you have quite bollixed everything up, have you not?” First-William scolded Spike, his expression dour as he stood in front of the vampire hanging by his wrists from the stone wall.

Spike tried to shake his head, but it barely moved, hanging limply on his shoulders like a ragdoll. Everything hurt. No. That’s not right. Everything was excruciatingly, agonizingly, ruthlessly, severely, unbearably painful. Not just his shoulder. Not just his back, which had been flayed open with whips and slashed brutally with a heavy, rattan cane. Not just his chest, which had been burned repeatedly with a hot poker. Not just his face, which had been beaten to a pulp with the rock-hard fists of the Turok-Han. Not just his legs, which had been used like pincushions … with daggers as the pins. Not just his heart, which had been shredded and shattered by Buffy’s callous words. Every fiber of his being _hurt_.

“It appears as though you have to me,” First-William insisted, walking back and forth in front of Spike. “Buffy will no longer tolerate your ineptitude. Not even I can bridge this chasm you seem to have plunged us into.”

“Tried,” Spike forced out between his bruised and bleeding lips.

“Yes, well, as Buffy pointed out, your abysmal efforts of ‘trying’, rather than _succeeding,_ are what have driven her away, and left you hanging here like an impotent dolly for this horrid creature to play with,” First-William pointed out, waving a hand at the Turok-Han who stood nearby, waiting for its turn with the dolly to come again. 

“Buffy…” Spike pleaded, his voice a croaking sob, filling the cavern with utter misery.

“Yes, that will certainly help,” First-William scoffed. “Too bad she’s given up on you. She’s not here any longer to hear you beg, you insufferable clod. And she will not return! You’ve seen to that, have you not? She’s done with you … with us!

“We have lost everything and everyone we’ve ever loved. You always seem to find a way to drive everyone away, do you not?  Mother, Drusilla, Buffy …” First-William accused.

Spike tried again to shake his head, not in denial, but simply in despair, but again it barely moved. “I’m sorry… so … bloody … sorry.”

First-William snorted derisively. “Not as sorry as I am, you vile, filthy creature. Who could love you, after all? You’re nothing but the dirt beneath their feet. Unworthy of love.”

Spike’s head bobbed on his shoulders, a minute movement, as tears slipped from his blackened and swollen eyes. He had no argument to offer. William was right.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy went in the upstairs bathroom and gazed into her reflection in the mirror, stunned and dismayed. She ran her fingers over the spots on her cheekbones and brows, trying to concentrate and make them fade, like a vampire could change its face, but to no effect.

She tried shaking her head, like she’d seen Spike do many times, but that didn’t do anything either. She tried just retracting her fangs, pushing on them with her fingers and willing them to just pull up, but again, no joy. Buffy wished Spike was here, he could teach her … maybe. Maybe whatever she had didn’t go away like a vampire’s did.

Buffy tried stilling her thoughts and just concentrating on her normal appearance, picturing it in her mind, but all that did was allow her to hear every heartbeat and conversation going on downstairs, and even some voices from the basement. Willow and Tara were assuring Dawn that Buffy was fine, Kennedy and Rona were debating whether Buffy’s new power would be enough to defeat the Turok-Han, Amanda and Xander were picking up the various chains and ropes and weapons that had been strewn over the living room. Anya was complaining that the shadow casters wouldn’t fit back into the box right.

But the conversation that caught and held her attention was between Giles and Robin. She could tell they were talking in low voices, and it sounded like they were in the sitting room at the back of the house, away from the others.

“I’ll go with her again,” Robin was saying. “Maybe this time I’ll actually get a chance to get near Spike.”

“Yes, it seems much more likely given her … upgrade,” Giles agreed. “You do need to make certain she does not see you or suspect,” the ex-Watcher warned. “She can be quite … zealous, and I do not know what influence this new demonic power she has will have on her self-control.”

“I will be. If I can’t dust him there without being seen, then we’ll just have to come up with a different plan and get rid of our problem later,” Robin assured him. “I’m a patient man. I’ve had to be.”

Buffy’s heart dropped then skittered and surged, pounding in her chest so loudly that it drowned out all the other sounds in the house.  Her red cat-eyes flew open, a low growl emanated from her throat sounding much like a big, angry, man-eating lion. The gold flecks in the field of red that were her irises seemed to dance and glitter even brighter as her anger grew, but she didn’t wait around to study the phenomenon in the mirror further.

When Buffy stepped soundlessly into the small sitting room at the back of the house, both Giles and Robin jumped, startled into silence.

“What’s going on?” she asked casually, moving closer to them.

“Buffy! Errr, we were just discussing Spike’s … rescue. We felt it would be a good idea for Robin to accompany you again,” Giles explained nervously.

“Did you? And Spike’s rescue…. Did you actually expect him to survive it?” she wondered, her red eyes narrowing into angry slits.

“Of course, why wouldn’t—” Giles began, but Buffy’s warning growl stopped his words short.

“Stop lying,” she demanded. “I heard you … I heard it all. Spike’s the vampire that killed your mom, isn’t he?” the Slayer asked, turning her disconcerting eyes on Robin.

“He’s a monster,” the big man replied, nodding, keeping his voice calm but firm.

Buffy’s lips curled up into a snarl, baring her small, but sharp, fangs. “He _was_ , he’s not anymore. He’s. My. Husband. He fights at my side now, battling evil. He’s a warrior!

“Apparently, that big, fat IQ of yours is so inflated with delusions of revenge that it’s willing to risk the safety of the _entire world_ for your own personal vendetta! I thought you understood the importance of the _mission_. How proud would your mom be of you now?” Buffy asked, burying a knife in what she knew would be an old, but deep wound.

Robin opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it, his eyes dropping down to the carpet in shame.

Buffy turned her attention back to Giles. “I guess your definition of ‘support’ is different than mine … and ‘forever’ just got a lot shorter,” she observed, glaring glittering, red daggers in his direction.

“Buffy, I…”

“Get the fuck out of my house,” she ordered, cutting him off, her tone as hard as stone and as sharp as a razor.

“Buffy, I assure you…” Giles started again.

“GET. OUT,” she repeated crisply. “Both of you. And don’t come back. I can take a lot of things, but this … this scheming behind my back to kill Spike? I can’t just let that go.”

Giles met her eyes, his own full of concern and apprehension. “Buffy, I’ve only ever wanted what was best for you,” he explained. “And Spike is not—"

“Did you not just hear me? Spike is a warrior.  Why can’t you see that he’s someone who can actually tip the scales in our favor here?” Buffy demanded.

“Buffy, I believe your judgement may be colored by your emotions,” Giles suggested gently. “Spike is not—"

“OUT,” she repeated, coldly, folding her arms over her chest and raising her chin defiantly.

Giles sighed, but nodded, and made his way around her, heading for the hallway, his head hung in defeat and shame. Robin followed him in silence, keeping a wary eye on the angry Slayer as he passed. Buffy heard Giles gathering up some of his things and then the front door open and close, and two fewer heartbeats filled the house.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“This can all end, Spike,” First-Angel told the battered and broken vampire who hung limply on the cavern wall.  “But not until you face the fact that Buffy isn’t coming for you. She doesn’t love you. You’re nothing to her.”

Spike didn’t respond at all. He didn’t move or speak or even twitch. His body was beyond any of that, the pain too great, the weariness too bottomless. Even the slightest movement sent shards of icy razors stabbing into him from all directions. His mind was lost in a thick haze of despair, pain, and heartbroken loneliness. He was barely able to follow what was happening or who was talking half the time. So many people kept talking to him. Even though he had trouble following them, it was a relief when they were talking because then no one was touching him, beating him, stabbing him, burning him.

He just wanted it to stop. If someone would just dust him, just put an end to it. That’s all he could hope for now – the ultimate death. The end to all this pain.

“You can stop all this, William,” First-Angel told him again. His voice sounded gentle, caring, sincere – as if he really wanted to help Spike, to take his pain away. “Just say … yes.”

Spike tried to say it, but the word got lost somewhere between his mind and his lips, like a wisp of smoke slipping through his fingers. _Yes_ … but no one could hear.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy prowled through the underground lair of The First and its Harbingers of Death with no thought to stealth or caution. She was ready for a fight. She needed to hit something. Badly. She needed to rip something’s head off and pummel flesh into hamburger. It had taken all the light in her soul to keep from beating Giles and Robin into pulp earlier, and she felt twitchy and on edge with pent-up, frustrated rage now.

She didn’t have a light. She didn’t need one. She could see now in the dark just as well as in broad daylight, but with fewer shadows and perhaps a bit less depth perception. She had a couple of weapons, a dagger, a stake, and another squirt bottle of holy water, but they were tucked away. She wanted to hit something with her fists, to feel flesh and bone give beneath her power, to release her rage without any weapon between herself and her adversary.

Buffy got to the large, open cavern where she’d last seen Spike without encountering a single Bringer or the Turok-Han. The cave was vacant. The shackles hung empty against the far wall. There was absolutely no one here.  

She walked over to the place where Spike had hung and looked down at the blood-soaked sand on the floor. So much blood. How much blood could a vampire lose and not lose his mind, or even dust? She had no idea. She felt tears well in her eyes, burning and hot, as if she were crying liquid fire, before they flowed in slow, desperate rivers down her cheeks.

“Spike,” she cried, dropping to her knees in the sand, her hands digging into the blood-soaked soil as if they could somehow reach out to him, find him, through his blood. “Please, Spike … where are you?” she begged picking up handful after handful of the damp, red sand.

Her fingers met a small stone in the soft soil and she pulled it out and held it up. It was the communication amulet that Willow had made for each of them, the leather thong that had held it around his neck still attached, but broken.

Buffy had tried innumerable times to reach him through that, but it had never worked. She assumed she just had never gotten the hang of communicating without having the person in sight, but … well, it didn’t really matter now. He didn’t even have it on.

She threw her head back, clutching the amulet in her hand, and screamed his name, over and over, until her voice cracked under the strain, leaving her gasping and hoarse. But the effort left her no less worried, no less afraid for him, no less anxious and nervous and a hundred other emotions that she couldn’t even begin to name. But the emotion that popped up to the surface, that pushed all the others back, that filled her entire being, was fury. Unmitigated, super-powered, brutal, savage, primal, demonic fury.  Fury at The First for taking him. Fury at herself for not being able to help him. Fury at Giles and Robin Wood for their selfish scheming. Fury at the world, at heaven, at hell, at the whole universe just for existing.

Buffy roared in rage, in frustration, in utter misery, filling the entire cave and all its spiderweb of tunnels with her wrathful cry. She jumped up to her feet and smashed her fists into the solid rock of the wall, making sand and pebbles rain down from above. Over and over she bashed against the unmoving, unforgiving rock until, at last, it conceded, cracking and crumbling beneath her onslaught.

The cavern wall began to shudder, to quiver, as if shaken by an earthquake, and then collapse, raining rocks and dirt down in a torrent of crumbling earth. Buffy screamed a wordless shout of victory over the cave, standing unafraid amid the waves of falling debris, before turning and walking slowly out, as if taking a Sunday stroll. The large cavern collapsed fully behind her with a deafening roar, covering her in a shower of dust and sand, leaving her looking more like a ghost than either a Slayer or a demon.

Her pent-up fury had waned by the time she reached the exit and climbed out of the tunnels, which continued to collapse behind her. The shuddering, crumbling caverns followed her as if she were a goddess, and the earth was kneeling in supplication in her wake.

As she stood on the grassy Christmas tree lot in the morning light, she watched as the tunnels turned into deep, sunken gashes in the earth, the rocks beneath seeing the sun for the first time in eons. She nodded to herself, satisfied, her dark hair bouncing and shining beneath the morning sun, as the last tunnel collapsed just a foot away from where she stood.

Buffy decided that she really didn’t like caves very much. In fact, she was distinctly anti-cave. Nothing good ever seemed to happen in them, at least not on the Hellmouth. Maybe she’d form the first cave demolition company after she’d kicked The First Evil’s ass back to hell, and get rid of all these dark, dank, and decidedly evil, clubhouses.  

“Well … I guess I showed you,” she muttered as she turned to go and began walking slowly back toward home. But her small show of bravado was just a flimsy, fragile façade, because now she had no idea how or where to find Spike. And she had to find him.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Now, now, William, you mustn’t fret, dear.”

The voice sounded so familiar, and yet so very distant, lost in the cobwebs of time in Spike’s mind. It was a different voice than all the normal ones that yammered at him day and night. His foggy brain couldn’t place it, though. But it was someone important, he knew.

His body was broken, his heart a lead weight in his chest, his soul an icy blanket draped over him, and his mind seemed lost somewhere between the past and a lifeboat on the North Sea. No, wait, that’s not right. Lost between … something. He couldn’t remember … what was he trying to remember?

Spike forced his eyes open painfully and used the last small reserve of energy to lift his head, he needed to see who it was so he could remember.

“Mother…”

“You have such a tender heart, William. I know you loved her, but we both know that girl is simply not the right one for you. Honestly, dear, I believe her issues have issues,” William’s mother told him sympathetically. “You simply cannot depend on someone like that. You do realize that now, don’t you, son?

“You do know who you _can_ depend on, though, do you not?” she asked, moving closer, her tone and expression concerned and compassionate. “Who is the woman that has always been there for you?”

“You,” Spike muttered, letting his head fall again and his eyes close.

“Yes, my sweet boy, _me_ ,” she agreed. “I can make this pain end for you. Make you whole and well. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Tired of hurting, Mother. So tired.”

“Therefore, you know what you must do, do you not?”

Spike nodded his head a fraction of an inch, unable to do more.

“There’s my good boy. Let’s get you down, shall we?” she asked, motioning to the Turok-Han to release Spike’s bonds.

Spike crumpled to the ground when his shackles were removed. His pain and exhaustion, his confusion and heartache leaving him empty, with nothing more to give.

“You shall never be hurt by that woman again, my dear William. My strength is yours, my power will be in your hands, and your hands wrapped around her throat will erase all your pain,” his mother assured him. “All you must do is join with me, invite me in.”

Spike found the energy to nod once, his mind reeling, his heart lost, his body broken.

“That’s my sweet boy. Just say the words, dear, and all this will end,” his mother assured him, her voice kind and caring.

“Please … come in,” Spike croaked out through the haze of his broken heart and abused flesh, simply wanting the pain to end.

In an instant, William’s mother’s form morphed into the incorporeal demon form of The First. Spike’s body was engulfed in the essence of The First Evil, the overpowering feeling of pure, unadulterated evil pouring over him, into him, through him. Spike’s wounds healed, his bones mended, his pain evaporated, and his despair lifted as power flowed into him, dark and sinister.

Spike stood up slowly, embracing the power, opening himself fully to the essence of The First Evil, rejoicing in the phenomenon of joining with something so powerful and primordial. Spike roared with rapture, his arms open, welcoming the dominion of pure evil into his very soul.  

And then, with a burst of light, The First withdrew, leaving Spike panting and exuberant, brimming with seemingly-limitless power.

“Now then,” First-Buffy said cheerily. “Let’s go kill some ripe, fresh little girls, whaddya say?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh!!! You cannot be serious!?! Now what? How will Buffy find Spike now? What is Spike doing? Will Buffy be able to forgive him for whatever he does under The First’s influence? What will happen when a super-powered Slayer and super-powered vampire meet?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Buckle up and hold on, kiddos! It's STILL going to get worse before it gets better! (This is not a drill!) I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	70. No 'I' in Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy imparts some wisdom on the Potentials and her new strength is put to the test.

* * *

 

Buffy walked around the side of the house to the backyard when she got back from the now-collapsed cavern beneath the Christmas tree lot. She stood silently watching Kennedy taking the Potentials through their paces with some marital arts practice drills. As Kennedy called out what kick or punch combination to perform, the other Potentials, standing in ranks, would execute it in unison.

After watching for a minute or two, Buffy started walking through the lines of the Potentials, who were lined up in uniform rows and columns like a military formation. She sighed internally at the orderliness of it; this wasn’t what it was like in the real world. There were no straight lines in battles. There were no combinations of punches and kicks that worked in every situation. It was about thinking on your feet, on improvising, on using your surroundings to your advantage, and listening to your instincts.

The Potentials cast furtive glances at her, taking in her midnight-black hair, red eyes, fangs, and leopard-spotted brows and cheeks. By now they’d all heard about her ‘upgrade’, but most of them hadn’t seen it for themselves until now.  

“Keep your wrist flat and strong, Caridad, don’t let it break or you’ll hurt yourself instead of your opponent. And punch with your whole arm, from your shoulder, not your elbow,” Buffy advised one Potential, adjusting the girl’s wrist to show her how to punch properly. The girl nodded her thanks and did the maneuver again, drawing a nod of approval from Buffy.

“Kick with your heel, not your toes, Molly,” Buffy told another girl. “Turn your hip so your heel comes up, like this,” Buffy advised, demonstrating the proper form. “See? That will give you more power, and fewer broken toes.”

“Like this?” Molly asked, trying to mimic what Buffy had done.

“Almost.” Buffy adjusted the girl’s leg, rolling her hip into the proper position. “I know it feels awkward, but once you get it, you’ll see it’s a lot more powerful. Keep practicing, you’ll get it,” she encouraged her.

“Good job, Shannon. That looks really strong,” Buffy encouraged another one as she walked slowly through the ranks, making her way up to the front.

“Chao-Ahn, hěn hǎo,” Buffy complimented the Chinese Potential. Chao-Ahn began talking animatedly to Buffy in Chinese, making the Slayer hold her hands up to stop her.

“Sorry, I know like … five words of Chinese, but hěn hǎo! Very good!” Buffy repeated, giving the girl an encouraging smile before moving on, correcting, complimenting, and encouraging as needed, making sure to call each one by name.

“Punch block combo!” Kennedy called out, and all the girls, save one, turned to the left with their punch. Chloe turned to her right and ended up face-to-face with Buffy.

“What do you call that, Potential!?” Kennedy barked at the girl, striding toward the wayward fighter.

“Looks like Chloe listened to her instincts and turned the right way to defend the threat,” Buffy offered, putting one arm up against Chloe’s as if the Potential had blocked a blow. “Good job!”

Chloe beamed at Buffy and nodded. “Thanks,” she murmured under her breath before turning back to the face the front.

Kennedy looked perturbed, but backed off, going back to the front of the formation to continue.

“Do you mind if I have a try with something?” Buffy asked Kennedy, as she moved to the front of the group.

“You’re the Slayer,” the girl acquiesced, giving up her position at the front to take a place in line with the others.

“So I am,” Buffy muttered to herself as she walked over and retrieved a sword from a cache of weapons on the porch.

Buffy threw the sword, point first, into the grass near the fence behind where Kennedy had been standing in front of the ranks of girls. The blade was buried enough to stand up on its own, looking like a cross with its hilt glinting in the sun.

Buffy turned then and walked the few feet back to the front of the group. “Here’s the drill,” she began. “Whoever can get past me and pull that sword out of the ground gets five extra minutes in a steaming hot shower.”

All the Potentials murmured in longing for that, looking from one to the other with enthusiastic grins. “If I knock you down, you have to go back and try again. Everyone keeps trying until someone does it. Any questions?”

“What are the rules? Other than getting knocked down sends you to the back?” Kennedy asked. “I mean … can we hit you or tackle you?”

Buffy smirked. “You can try,” she told the girl. “No other rules. Do whatever you can to get to the sword, but if you get knocked down, you have to go back.”

The girls lined up single-file, with Kennedy at the front. “You guys might as well sit down, cos that shower is mine,” she told them confidently as she squared up with Buffy.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Buffy told her, standing casually, her arms folded over her chest, as if waiting for the school bus to arrive.

Kennedy charged, clearly aiming to simply bowl Buffy over. To Buffy’s new power, it looked like the girl was moving in slow motion, although, clearly, she was giving it her full effort. Buffy stepped to the side easily, and pushed on Kennedy’s shoulder just as the Potential got even with the Slayer, sending the girl tumbling off to the side like a sack of potatoes.

“Next,” Buffy called, and Amanda came at her, with similar results … and Rona, Molly, Choa-Ahn, Chloe, Shannon, Violet, Caridad … the list went on. Seventeen girls in all. And then they started again. And again, and again.

Buffy had barely moved, certainly hadn’t worked up a sweat or even had to breathe particularly hard as she sent one after another rolling over the grass, no one getting even close to the sword. The Potentials looked like they’d been in a five mile Tough-Mudder race, covered in grass stains and dirt, and more than a few bruises and scrapes, despite Buffy trying to be gentle-ish. They stood bent over with their hands on their thighs, breathless and exhausted, and clearly frustrated.

“Is there a point to this other than to show us how useless we are?” Rona wondered derisively as she brushed grass and dirt off her shirt.

“Actually, there is. The point is what you’re supposed to be figuring out,” Buffy replied before calling, “Next!”

Buffy could hear the girls grumbling, saying the match-up wasn’t fair, that Buffy was not only the Slayer, but a super-powered one, and they were just girls. She kept one small bit of her attention on their grumblings while systematically dismissing contender after contender. No matter what they tried, she was too fast. If they tried running around her, she just moved into their path and blocked them. If they tried punching or kicking her, she just ducked the punch or leapt over their kick, and took their feet out, if they tried bulldozing her, she just stepped to the side and pushed them down.

Even when it was clear the girls were ready to quit, to go in and get lunch and declare it lost cause, Buffy continued to call, “Next,” over and over again, and the girls kept trying, grousing about how unfair it was the whole time as they waited for their turn to get knocked down again.

Then, finally, she heard it. She heard what she’d been trying to show them. She heard their frustration turn into determined defiance, she heard them become a team instead of individuals. The next time she called, “Next!” sixteen girls charged at her at once, and one ran around the mob toward the sword.

Although Buffy could’ve fought them off if she’d really been in some danger, she didn’t. She let them take her down, and allowed one girl to retrieve the sword. Amanda held it up in victory, dancing around and swishing it through the air as all the others cheered.

Buffy nodded and bit her bottom lip with her fangs – which wasn’t the best idea because they were sharp, and ow! – as the girls unpiled off her, a couple of them offering her a hand up.

She brushed the grass off her clothes, along with left-over dust from the cavern, and watched the celebrating Potentials. Even though there was only one reward to be had, they were all ecstatic for having defeated her.

Finally, they settled down and fell into a semi-organized group in front of her, all still grinning and giddy with their victory.

Buffy was smiling too, the golden flecks in her red eyes glittering with pride in them. “And that is the point of this exercise. Individually, you may be strong, but you’re stronger together. You’re a team, if one wins, you all win.

“There are no rules in the fight against evil. I never said you had to come one at a time, I never told you to line up, you _assumed_ that was a rule. Use every advantage you have, use your minds, use your imaginations, there are no cheap shots in this fight – take every advantage you can,” the Slayer told them.

“One day, one of you might be standing here where I am. You might be the Slayer. And here’s my advice to you: no matter what anyone tells you, you are not alone. Don’t be afraid to let people help you, don’t be afraid to let people in. The Slayer may be the Chosen _One_ , but that doesn’t mean you have to fight alone,” Buffy continued.

“Here endeth the lesson,” she announced, looking around at the tousled and tumbled group of girls, who all looked a little worse for wear, but still pleased with themselves.

“And, I think you _all_ could use a nice long, hot shower,” she added after a moment. “I just happen to know where there’s a great big locker-room full of brand new showers with plenty of hot water.”  

That announcement drew another, even more enthusiastic, cheer from the group. Long, hot showers were as hard to come by as chocolate and mirror-time in a house full of teenaged girls.

“Have lunch, get a little rest, then get your stuff and we’ll go out to the school and luxuriate in some freaking hot showers!” the Slayer announced, drawing even louder cheers as they headed for the house.

“Very inspirational,” Willow commented as she came down from the back porch, moving against the tide of girls. “I wish I was a Potential so I could have a hot shower,” she pouted.

Buffy turned to her friend and sighed. “It’s not enough … but it’s something,” she admitted, her enthusiasm waning in the face of what dangers awaited them.

“Well, I think it was awesome. At least they stopped bickering for a while,” Willow observed. “That’s a victory in itself!”

Buffy nodded and give her friend an appreciative smile.

“I guess no joy finding Spike?” Willow broached cautiously.

Buffy shook her head, another deflating sigh leaving her body. “The whole place was empty, not even any Bringers. How are we gonna find him?”

Willow shook her head. “I’m almost afraid to try another locator spell. My eyebrows haven’t grown back from getting singed the last time when it blew up in my face.

“Maybe Giles could—” Willow began but was cut off by Buffy’s sharp look.

“Giles is gone. He’s not on the team anymore … and neither is Robin, if he ever even was,” Buffy told the witch.

“Why? What happened?” Willow asked, shocked.

“He thought he knew better than I did what we need, and he lied to me to arrange things to his own agenda.

“Despite what I just told them, this isn’t a democracy. We don’t have time to debate every decision. And I don’t have extra energy to spend fighting with my own team. We made a damn plan. We’re following it. I need you all, but, in the end, this all falls to me. I have to know my decisions are being respected, my orders followed,” Buffy told her. “Does that sound terrible?”

Willow shrugged. “I guess it sounds like … war. Having an army doesn’t do any good if there’s no one leading it, or if the followers don’t follow,” she observed.

Buffy nodded. “It is war, Will. It’s the biggest war yet.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

It was late afternoon before Buffy could get all the girls rounded up with shampoos, conditioners, soaps, lotions, exfoliating scrubbers, razors, wash cloths, towels, and fresh clothes in hand. It was like herding cats – very disorganized, impractical cats with ADHD. She had some qualms about taking them so late, but she had promised and felt confident that her new strength and power would allow her to keep them safe on the field trip. Still, she armed herself and, instead of walking, they piled into cars for the short trip.

Buffy entered through the same open window she and Spike had used a few days before, checking the school out before going to the side door by the gym and letting the girls in. Everything in the school seemed quiet, but it hadn’t been earlier.

The students were clearly becoming more agitated and aggressive, the malevolent energy from the Hellmouth had been seeping into them from the activated seal. Graffiti was rampant, and broken furniture and other miscellany was strewn around the classrooms and hallways. Buffy hadn’t been back here since the attack by the Turok-Han, and she was pretty sure she couldn’t come back as a counselor or even a peace-keeper now. Not only did she not trust Principal Wood, she also looked like, well, a demon. Or a really hard-core punk rocker with a leopard fetish. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

After double-checking the locker room and finding it window-less and Harbinger-less, Buffy let the girls go in and enjoy their long, hot showers while she stood guard at the only entrance.

She seemed to stand there on guard forever. How long could people stay in a shower without turning into prunes? She was getting bored and antsy; the sun was starting to set and that doubled the possible baddies that could attack them on their way back to the house.

Just as some of the girls began to emerge from the locker-room, Buffy heard footsteps echoing in the hall and all her senses went on full alert. Something had found them, and it wasn’t here to give them ice cream and pony rides.

“Go back and stay in there. Barricade the door until I come back to get you,” she told Amanda, who had been one of the first ones out.

As the girls quickly moved to obey, Buffy slowly and silently made her way toward the intersecting hallway where the sound was coming from. She clutched the dagger in her hand almost tight enough to shatter the handle as she approached the hall, quickly sticking her head around the corner for a look and pulling it back just as swiftly.

Buffy’s heart leapt, stopped a moment, and then sped away at a gallop. A Turok-Han was making its ungainly way toward her … toward the Potentials. Here it was; here was the test. Was the power she’d been given going to be enough? Would she be able to protect them?

Buffy took a deep breath and stepped out into the intersection of the hallways, directly in the path of the oncoming uber-vamp.  

“Do you have a hall pass?” she asked the vamp, standing with her hands on her hips, her dagger still clutched in one hand, pointing out behind her. “If not, then you know that means detention and a big black mark on your permanent record.”

The uber-vampire roared out a furious growl and charged her, but Buffy was ready for that and stepped aside at the last moment, bringing her dagger down on its back, right in between its massive shoulder blades, as it passed. The thing screeched out a sharp cry and tried to stop on the slick, new floor, but couldn’t get any traction and slid several feet, crashing into a bank of metal lockers, leaving an uber-vamp sized dent in the steel doors. 

Unfortunately, it took Buffy’s dagger with it, still imbedded between its shoulders, but she was undaunted. She followed it and reached the uber-vamp before it could get back to its feet on the slippery, waxed floor. She slammed a fist into its jaw, rocking it back and whipping its ugly, hairless head to the left, then followed up with another fist into its other jaw, jarring its head to the right.

The creature reached for her with its long arms, attempting to trap her within its grasp, but she ducked gracefully and added two quick punches to its groin area while she was at it. She had no idea if it was male or female, honestly, or if it even had dangly bits, but figured it couldn’t hurt to take the shot.

Unfortunately, instead of debilitating the vamp, that seemed to infuriate it, and it kicked out with one foot and hit Buffy square in the jaw with a powerful blow. The Slayer rolled, ass over tits, back down the hallway, coming to rest a few yards away, but unlike the last time it had kicked her, she didn’t stay down and no cartoon birdies chirped in her ears. Buffy rolled back to her feet just in time to take a linebacker-type tackle from the large creature, which drove her to the ground and tore her breath out in a grunt of pain.

Knifes stabbed into her lungs as they deflated momentarily, and her head smacked against the hard floor, but it seemed somehow far away, like it was someone else’s pain, not hers. In that instant she understood how Spike did it, how it must be for all vampires: they feel the pain, but it’s just not that important. She brought a knee up between the uber-vamp’s legs in a brutal blow, and pushed up against its shoulders with both hands, as it snapped and snarled, trying to reach her throat with its jagged, sharp teeth.

Her knee to its groin did seem to get its attention, at least for a moment. It stopped snarling and snapping at her, its breath driven out, and seemed to curl in on itself for an instant. She took the opportunity to flip them over, using all her considerable strength to get the heavy, powerful creature off her. As soon as she had the advantage of being above it, she began raining blows down on its face, knocking teeth out of its mouth, bloodying its flat, bat-like nose and blackening its eyes. She took every ounce of anger and frustration out on the ugly thing, showering it with blow after blow from her powerful fists. Her hands were bleeding from getting cut on the Turok-Han’s shark-like teeth, but again, she barely noticed the pain, like it was separate from herself.

“BUFFY!” a voice from nearby registered with her, the tone indicating it wasn’t the first time it had been said.

She looked up momentarily to see several of the Potentials there, very close. Too close. But she registered something else too – Rona was holding a long, wooden staff – maybe a flag pole or something – that had been broken and had a sharp end on it.

Buffy rolled off the vamp and up to her feet in the blink of an eye, her shiny, black hair flying, her red eyes burning brightly with an inner fire. She kicked at the uber-vamp mercilessly, feeling ribs crack beneath her boots and flesh turn to pulp. It tried to roll away, to get back to its feet, but she continued the onslaught, slamming powerful kicks into its torso and face. When it turned over and got to its hands and knees, she took the opportunity to grab the hilt of the dagger, which still protruded at a sharp angle from its back, and twist violently.  The vamp collapsed, face down beneath her and she kicked it one more time, turning it over so that its chest was up.

“NOW!” Buffy screamed at the girls nearby and they rushed forward as one. With several pairs of hands on the makeshift stake, they drove it down into the vamp’s chest with all their strength.  Buffy put both of her hands on the top of the long shaft and, with one final, brutal shove, penetrated the hard, armor-like chest cavity and pierced the vamp’s un-beating heart.

The Turok-Han screamed in painful fury, and then burst into dust beneath them as the wood was imbedded into its heart. The girls all cheered, relieved and elated with their triumph, as Rona held the long stake up over her head and shook it in victory.

Buffy took a step back and leaned against a bank of lockers, catching her breath, as the Potentials celebrated. She wanted to celebrate too, but that had still been too hard. She certainly had done much better than before against the uber-vamp, but daggers, swords, or just normal stakes weren’t going to get the job done. She thought she could have killed it with her bare hands by wrenching its head from its shoulders, but just to get to the point to be able to attempt that would take a lot of fighting.  That would be fine if there were just one or two, but there was a whole Hellmouth of them waiting to swarm out.

She needed more. What she’d done was not going to be enough to stop all the Turok-Han that waited in the Hellmouth. It was still not enough.

Despite her uneasy feeling, she returned high-fives with the Potentials who had helped her and offered congratulations as they headed back toward the locker-room and the other girls waiting there.

It was a start, at least, but she needed more if she was going to win this war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buffy can hold her own with the Turok-Han now, at least, but how is she gonna find Spike? And what will she find when she does locate him??
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Don’t relax yet. It's STILL going to get worse before it gets better! (This is not a drill!) I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	71. No Team in Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cohesion within the group starts to deteriorate further. Is the extra demonic influence making Buffy unreasonable, or are the others not seeing the direness of the situation and not giving her the respect she deserves?
> 
> Some direct quotes from ‘Dirty Girls’ written by Drew Goddard and ‘Showtime’ by David Fury

* * *

 

The Potentials were still celebratory, talking loudly and animatedly about the defeat of the Turok-Han at the school as they came back into Chez Summers a bit later. Buffy brought up the rear, watching for more danger, but nothing presented itself.

Inside, Willow and Xander stood waiting for her, equal parts worried, confused, and elated about what they were hearing from the girls.

“Buff! Is it true!? You took it down?” Xander asked her as she came inside.

“Yeah … well, _we_ took it down,” she amended, giving the retreating backs of the Potentials a glance.

“So the upgrade worked!” Willow announced excitedly.

“Yeah, it worked,” Buffy agreed, not quite as excitedly.

“So why the lack of cheer?” Willow wondered, her own excitement waning.

“Oh, I’m cheer … I’m all about the cheer. I’m cheerful cheerios,” Buffy assured her. “But it’s not enough.”

She turned her attention to Xander then. “I need a new weapon. Something upgraded, heavy-duty … a Stake 2.0 to go with Buffy 2.0,” she told him. “Can you make me something that’s pretty long – I need to be able to get past that thing’s arms – with a really sharp, hard wooden stake on one end and something head-choppy on the other? Like a machete or …better yet, a guillotine?”

“I don’t think they make hand-held, do-it-yourself, guillotines,” Xander replied slowly, but he began to nod. “I think I can do something, though. So, you want stake-y and sever-y in one?”

“Exactly. A girl needs options,” Buffy explained, her energy suddenly beginning to wane. Some of those pains that had seemed far away and not even hers before were beginning to come home to roost.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll work on it,” Xander agreed, his mind turning over possibilities.

“Thanks … I think I’ll just die a little now,” Buffy told them, looking up the stairs toward her bedroom wistfully. “Wake me if it looks like the end of the world gets more nigh.”

“Sure,” Willow agreed. “Do you need something to eat? Do you … still eat food? We have blood, too,” she offered cautiously.

“People are still off the menu. I’m still people … just a little less … people-ish,” Buffy assured her. “What do we have?”

“Well, Andrew cooked a turkey he found in the freezer and all the fixin’s. It actually looks … edible,” Willow told her.

“Your hostage cooks? I should’ve gotten a hostage years ago,” Buffy quipped, but nodded, heading up the stairs. “Does he deliver too?”

Willow smiled proudly. “He’s my hostage, he does what I tell him or faces the consequences,” she announced brightly. “Except shut up. I can’t get him to shut up.”

Buffy laughed lightly as she made her way upstairs. “I want a leg … and gravy. Did he make mashed potatoes? Green bean casserole? Cranberry sauce? Pumpkin pie? Bring me all the food.”

“All the food, coming up!” Willow agreed as Buffy headed into the bathroom to get her own, hopefully hot, shower.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy was gently woken from her sleep when she felt the bed dip behind her and Spike’s cool, strong hand touch her bare shoulder. She knew it was Spike before she’d even opened her eyes or turned. She could feel him in her bones, feel his unique signature tingling at the base of her spine.

_Spike_.

She turned in the bed and their eyes met in the darkness of her room, and then his lips were on hers, desperate and eager. Her arms wrapped around him and she pulled his body against hers, grateful relief washing over her. He’d escaped! He was okay! He was here with her finally.

Spike came to her readily, shifting atop her, settling between her warm, welcoming thighs, wrapping his arms beneath her, and tangling his hands in her soft, raven hair. The kiss continued, passionate and loving, their tongues swirling against each other longingly, saying more than any words possibly could.

Their hips moved together in a slow, sensuous rhythm, not yet joined, but moving as one in a gentle dance.

“Missed you. Need you,” Buffy moaned against his lips, momentarily breaking the kiss, and their bodies shifted again, searching, aligning, and finally, gently, softly, connecting.

Soft gasps against each other’s lips marked the moment of rhapsody as his hardness found its home deep inside her soft, supple warmth.

“God, Buffy… love you,” Spike murmured against her mouth before capturing her lips in another, more ardent, kiss.

Their bodies moved as one. Rising and falling. Riding the gentle waves of pleasure, of love, of devotion and passion. They floated on the gentle tide of rapture that flowed out from their hearts, washing over them like ripples in a pond. Their hearts were ablaze with endless, undying love, their bodies infernos of desire which only served to fan the flames of their devotion.

“I love you. Spike, I love you so much … need you so much,” Buffy gasped as her body began to quiver, the lunatic fringe approaching, the edge of the world waiting for her to fall.

“I love you, Buffy … need you. You’re my everything,” Spike replied in a voice of pure, sweet, warm honey, pouring his ardor over her with the heartfelt words.

“Spike … the darkness. There’s so much. I don’t know if I can fight it,” she breathed. “Will you help me?”

Spike nuzzled his cool lips against her neck, kissing and sucking the warm skin there, feeling the thudding pulse of her blood just beneath. “Don’t fight it, pet. Give in to it. Join me in the dark … it’s where we both belong.”

The leopard spots on Buffy’s forehead crinkled as she tried to understand his words. That didn’t sound right, but his body moving against hers, his soft lips against her skin, his arms around her, all conspired to keep the meaning just out of her grasp.

“Spike?” she murmured, questioning, as he took her body and mind to the top of the world, up to that razor’s edge he was so adept at placing her on.

“Come over to the dark side, luv. We have cookies,” he murmured against her hot skin before sinking his fangs into her neck violently, tearing painfully at her flesh, and spraying hot blood all over them both.

Buffy screamed and sat bolt-upright in the bed, her body quivering with unreleased desire and shivering with terror at the same time. She looked around in the darkness, but she was alone. She felt her neck, but there was no bite, there was no blood. Her bedroom door opened, flooding light over her from the hall as Dawn came in, holding a baseball bat and looking scared, but determined to help.

“What is it?! A Bringer? Are you okay?” her sister asked, flipping the light on and nearly blinding Buffy.

“No … no, it’s nothing,” Buffy stammered, covering her glowing red eyes to shield them from the light. “Just a dream…”

Dawn took a deep breath and lowered the baseball bat. “Are you okay? Was it one of those end-of-the-world dreams?”

Buffy nodded, her eyes adjusting to the light, and looked up at her sister. “Yeah, one of those,” she agreed shakily, forgetting about her fangs and biting her bottom lip, puncturing two small holes in her tender skin.

“Bad, huh?” Dawn asked sympathetically.

Buffy nodded again bleakly, touching her tongue to the small drops of blood that welled on her lip.  A shiver ran down her spine as the metallic taste of blood slid over her tongue. “The baddest.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

**The next afternoon:**

“Buffy, we have a problem,” Xander’s strained voice came from her new cell phone when she answered it. Buffy sighed. What now? The toilet backed up? Someone ate Andrew’s ‘Hot Pockets’? Anya stayed in the bathroom too long? They were out of Fruit Loops?

Didn’t they understand what she was doing was important? She was trying to find The First’s new lair; trying to find Spike. Couldn’t someone there just handle all this minutia?

“Colleen decided she wanted another hot shower and went out alone,” Xander told her. “She hasn’t come back. Apparently, it’s been over three hours.”

“What?! Why would she do that?! And why am I just now hearing about it – three hours later?” Buffy exclaimed, changing directions and heading for the school.

“Because I just heard it,” Xander told her. “I’ll meet you there,” he said before hanging up the phone.

Buffy rolled her eyes and curled her fists in frustration. How was she supposed to keep these girls safe if they did stupid stuff like that!? She sighed heavily and took off running toward the high school, hoping beyond hope that the girl was okay.

Xander was there already when she got there, just getting out of his truck. Despite being after school hours, the front doors of the school stood open, the chaos inside was even worse than it had been the previous afternoon. Lockers had been knocked over, papers strewn everywhere, broken furniture and other vandalism was rampant. 

Buffy had noticed the same things happening all over town, actually. People were being inadvertently influenced by the Hellmouth, made more violent, less patient, more rash and impetuous. A lot of people were packing up and leaving; the overwhelming feeling of malevolence frightening them away from their homes and jobs.  In all her years in Sunnydale, she’d never seen it this bad before.

The two friends moved quickly through the school to the gym and the locker-rooms there, dodging debris and even passing a few fires that still burned in garbage cans. 

Xander pushed open the door to the girl’s locker-room and Buffy stepped in, stake in one hand, dagger in the other, but nothing moved inside. She could hear water running in the showers, so she stalked quietly back through the lockers to the tiled area at the back. She noted Colleen’s bag on a bench outside one of the shower stalls, the stall with the water running. Buffy pushed the curtain aside with the end of her dagger, but she already knew Colleen wasn’t in there, she heard no heartbeat coming from the other side of the thin partition.

Buffy sighed and turned the water off, looking around for clues, but really finding nothing out of place. Whatever had taken the girl, it had been strong enough to just grab her with no time for the Potential to even put up a fight.

Buffy turned and looked at Xander, who had followed her in, and shook her head. “Gone,” she said quietly. “Let’s go…”

“Go where?” he asked, following along in her wake as she passed him.

“To complete the horror-movie cliché by going into the dark, creepy basement to visit the even creepier Billy Goat Gruff manhole cover. I hear it’s where all the cool kids go to die,” she told him dourly as she headed down the hallway toward the basement access doors.

“Oh,” Xander gulped. “I think I just peed a little.”

“I hear they have some special pants for that now,” Buffy advised him as she opened the doors to the basement and headed in.

“Yeah, but I left mine at home,” Xander replied, following her.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy stood over Colleen’s body, her eyes clamped closed as tears of frustration and sorrow filled them, burning her with the futility of it all. The girl lay on her back on the evil manhole cover, the blood drained from her body from several deep knife wounds, her dead, brown eyes vacant and staring at nothing. She was still dressed; she hadn’t even gotten her hot shower.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Buffy exclaimed, clutching the stake in her hand hard enough to splinter it.

They had encountered no vampires or Harbingers on their way in. Whatever had done this, and whatever had been released from the Hellmouth with the Potential’s blood, was gone. Leaving just this casualty of war behind: a frightened girl who died terrified and alone. A girl who never had a chance at life.

“Uhhh, Buffy,” Xander interrupted her thoughts. “We have another problem.”

Buffy sighed and looked up at where he stood in the shadows near the far wall. “What?” she asked, walking around to where he was.

Xander took a step back, shining his flashlight down so Buffy could see what he’d found. “Eve,” he announced.

“Eve? What do you mean, ‘Eve’?” Buffy asked confused, coming to a stop next to him to look down on the body of another dead Potential.

This girl had also been stabbed numerous times, but there was more – she’d been bitten by a vampire. Buffy knelt and touched a finger to the bite on the dead girl’s neck, fighting the growing feeling of trepidation in her chest and the lump forming in her throat.

_Spike_.

She didn’t know how she knew for sure – his scent maybe registering with her enhanced senses, or just the exact size and placement of it on the girl’s neck, or maybe because of her dream. Buffy lifted her hand up to her own neck as if to cover his bite – in that exact same spot. She could almost feel his fangs sinking into her flesh …

“Buffy? Did you hear me? Eve, who was at the house when I left,” Xander said impatiently, apparently not for the first time, breaking Buffy from her contemplation.

“Fuck!” Buffy exclaimed, jumping up and heading for the exit with Xander following as quickly as he could.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“I mean, did y’all see her?” Eve asked the other gathered Potentials in the basement in a thick southern drawl. “She’s not even human. She’s a demon! And we’re supposed to, what? Trust her with our lives? A _demon_? Does that really seem right to you guys?”

Several of the Potentials mumbled their agreement with her, but Kennedy spoke up, “She’s done alright so far. We’re still here, aren’t we?”

“Sure, but for how long?” Eve argued. “I mean, all these big-bads are right here in this town, so she gathers us all up here? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to take us somewhere safe? Away from all these vampires and eyeless guys?

“I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t sound too smart,” Eve concluded, with a shrug.

“That’s a point,” Rona agreed, and several others again mumbled their agreement.

“Those Harbingers are everywhere,” Amanda pointed out. “They’ve killed girls all over the world. At least here we have someone with power to protect us.”

“Do we really? How do we know she’s not just gathering us up for the slaughter? Workin’ with those guys? Did I forget to mention that she’s a _demon_?” Eve retorted.

“Get away from them!” Buffy ordered, coming quickly down the basement stairs.

“Who? Get away from who?” Kennedy asked, looking up, confused.

“What's the problem, officer?” First-Eve asked sarcastically.

“I told you before to get the fuck out of my house, and I meant it. Now get out!” Buffy commanded through gritted teeth, walking determinedly toward the apparition of Eve.

“Whoa! What did Eve do?” Rona asked, stepping forward to defend the girl from the Slayer.

“That's not Eve,” Xander interjected as he reached the bottom of the stairs a few paces behind Buffy.

“Eve's dead,” Buffy announced grimly. “Something must’ve grabbed her yesterday in the confusion at the school. What came back with us last night was not Eve.”

“I don't … I don't understand,” Rona stammered, backing away from Buffy and Eve alike.

“Oops! One more down … oh no, two, isn’t it? Poor Colleen. Just wanted a hot shower,” Eve taunted in mock sympathy. “Of course, I assured her it would be fine for her to go get one. What could possibly happen in the middle of the day?

“Oh, well, can't save 'em all, can ya, Buffy? Couldn’t even save Spike, could you? And he was strong … he was prepared, experienced, ready for a fight – a warrior. What’s gonna happen with these scared little girls?” Eve continued to mock.

Buffy growled, her hands curled into impotent fists, willing, ready, and able to hit something but with nothing to hit. “SHUT. UP!”

“Thanks for the slumber party, girls. It was real fun last night. I learned a whole lot … like, you’re all gonna die … very soon,” Eve mocked, ignoring the Slayer. “I'll be sending some guests over to visit y'all pretty soon – after dark, of course. Remember your manners, and make them feel welcome before they rip y'all to pieces.”

“Get the fuck out!” Buffy ordered again, her red eyes glowing, the gold flecks that danced in them sparking with fury. She stepped forward the last pace toward the apparition, but Eve vanished with a small flash of white light before Buffy could reach her.

“ARGH!” Buffy screamed in frustration, turning toward the heavy punching bag that hung in the basement and smashing a fist into it, ripping it from its moorings. The bag flew across the basement like it was made of feathers and crashed into the washing machine with a deafening clang, denting the heavy metal.

No one in the basement moved or even dared to breathe, unsure what the Slayer would do next, not wanting to draw her wrath. Suddenly and silently, Buffy turned and strode away, up the stairs and out of the basement, slamming the door at the top with a splintering crash.

“I think I have a door to fix,” Xander said softly, turning and heading toward the stairs also.

“Are we … safe here?” Chloe asked in a small, scared voice from behind him.

Xander stopped and turned around to face the frightened Potentials … the frightened _girls_.  “I've been through more battles with Buffy than you all can ever imagine. She's stopped everything that's ever come up against her. She's laid down her life, _literally_ , to protect the people around her.

“This girl has died three times, and she's still standing. You're scared? That's smart. You got questions? You should. But never doubt her motives. You think she _wanted_ to turn into the Queen of the Damned? She did that for you! To protect _you_!

“I've seen her heart, and I'm telling you, right now, she cares more about your lives than you will ever know. You gotta trust her. She's earned it.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy nearly tripped over two small overnight bags that sat near the front door when she came back into the house a while later. Willow and Tara were just shrugging into their coats and looked up in surprise when the door opened.

“Will, what’s going on?” Buffy asked, looking from the bags to the two witches as she leaned the shovel in her hand up against the wall.

“Well, ummm … we thought we’d go to L.A. for a couple of days,” Willow explained.

Buffy’s brows went up, making the leopard spots on her forehead wrinkle. “In the middle of the always fun-filled apocalypse season?”

“We’ll just be a couple of days, and then right back for the apocalypse-y fun,” Willow assured her, reaching down to pick up the bags.

“And … L.A? Any particular reason for that vacation destination?” Buffy wondered.

Willow cleared her throat and Buffy heard the witch’s heartrate jump and begin to race faster. So that was how Spike could read her moods so well. _Hmph_.

“Willooow …” Buffy drawled out in a warning tone. “What’s up?”

“Angel might’ve gone all … ‘grr-argh’,” the witch explained.

“Angel’s a vampire. That’s his normal personality,” Buffy observed.

“Yeah, I know, but, maybe just a little more ‘grrr-y’ than normal,” Willow clarified, her voice rising on the end, almost making it a question.

“He’s lost his soul again,” Buffy surmised dourly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Willow sighed. “Fred called. They need help,” she confirmed.

“So … let me get this straight,” Buffy began, her ire rising. “You were too ‘tapped out’ to help me get Spike back when we knew where he was, and you can’t get a locator spell to work to find him, but you’re fine to go mojo Angel’s soul back. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“It’s not like that, Buffy,” Willow argued. “Plus – two completely different kinds of mojoing.”

“Maybe you could wrangle some souls into all those Turok-Han down in the Hellmouth,” Buffy suggested icily. “You know, make them loveable, little heel-biters who just want to eat Milk Bones and watch Bugs Bunny reruns.”

“I … don’t think they ever had souls?” Willow defended warily as Buffy’s red cat eyes fixed on her and began to glow with an inner fire.

“You know I need you here! I need your help to find Spike, to defeat The First, but you were gonna sneak off and not even tell me?” Buffy questioned coldly. “Did ya think I wouldn’t notice?”

“No, of course not, I just thought … a couple of days wouldn’t make that much difference,” Willow defended.

“Spike might tend to disagree. I guess it depends on what end of the cat of nine tails you’re on, doesn’t it?” Buffy snarled.

“Buffy…” Willow pleaded. “It’s Angel.”

Buffy nodded. “Angel. Who left us to deal with the Hellmouth ourselves. Angel, who didn’t even make an appearance at the Glory show. Angel, who never returned my call when Spike went off to get his soul recharged. Angel, who left me after saying he …” Buffy closed her eyes and tried to slow her own heart rate and calm her anger. She could feel the darkness inside her pressing against her resolve, wanting out, wanting to rip, tear, punch, fight, kill.  Buffy took a deep breath and pressed it back with a considerable force of will before opening her glittering red eyes again.

“Did it ever occur to you that it was The First who might’ve de-souled him in the first place, just to get you to leave?” Buffy asked after a few moments, looking back up at the witch.

“Ummm, well … actually, it was Wesley,” Willow revealed nervously.

“Wha…??” Buffy began, shaking her head, her face awash in confusion. “Never mind – I don’t even want to know,” she sighed, closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead and temples, which had all begun to throb uncontrollably. Her mind felt jumbled and her thoughts chaotic and disorganized, she tried to just slow her racing thoughts and arrange them into something coherent that Willow could understand.  

“Buffy?” Willow asked when Buffy didn’t say anything more for a minute.

Buffy lowered her hands and lifted her lids slowly, focusing her startling, crimson eyes on Willow. “I just buried two girls in my backyard. We have I don’t know how many more Turok-Han wandering around now, preparing to attack us at any time – maybe tonight. I still don’t know where Spike is, if he’s even still … undusty,” she continued, her voice cracking slightly on the last word. “Giles went behind my back and conspired with Robin to kill Spike when we do find him, and I just had The First do a sleep-over here!

“What part of this says that this is a good time to go to fucking L.A?” Buffy demanded of her friend angrily, re-crossing her arms over her chest.

“I know … it’s not a good time. It’s never a good time. But … I don’t know what I can do here, honestly – The First keeps blowing my magic up in my face. All I’m doing is spinning my wheels here. I _can_ help Angel,” Willow defended.  

Buffy pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes dangerously at her friend, her arms still crossed tightly over her chest. “If you walk out that door now, don’t come back.” 

“B-Buffy, you don’t mean that,” Tara tried to intervene.

“You either,” Buffy added, looking at the white witch. “We don’t have time for Angel’s bullshit or time to fix Wes’ mess. We have our own problems, and they’re a lot bigger than one more soulless vampire running around L.A. If we don’t find a way to defeat The First, Angelus will seem like a sad, cuddly puppy in comparison. If you can’t see the big picture I’m dealing with, then maybe you don’t need to be here.”

Willow straightened up, steeling her spine and her nerve. “I promised Fred I’d come,” she stated flatly, not seeing how a couple of days would really make that much difference in the defeat of The First. They still didn’t even know _how_ to defeat it or where it even was. Buffy was just being unreasonable and stubborn and bossy. Too much demon magic clouding the Slayer’s judgement, Willow decided, her own stubborn-side being roused into action.

Buffy snorted derisively. “Fine. Go,” the Slayer agreed angrily, stepping away from the door. “But don’t come back.”

Buffy headed up the stairs, leaving Willow and Tara standing in the foyer. As Buffy reached the top of the stairs, she heard the front door close, and two fewer heartbeats filled the house.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

A soft knock came on Buffy’s door a little while after Willow and Tara left, and Xander asked if he could come in.

“Are you going to lecture me or tell me I’m being unreasonable?” Buffy asked, not moving from where she stood looking out her window as the sun began to set.

“Uhhh … I guess it depends on what’s going on,” Xander replied truthfully, opening the door. “What’s going on?”

Buffy sighed and rolled her red feline eyes to the ceiling as she turned to face him. “What’s going on is people don’t seem to grasp the big picture,” Buffy told him.

“And … that picture is?” Xander wondered, stepping into the room.

“The picture is dire, the picture is the whole damn world is gonna be overrun with demons if we don’t figure this out,” Buffy explained.

“And Willow and Tara going to L.A. for a couple of days is gonna … do what?” Xander questioned, standing in front of her.

“That’s the thing. I don’t know. I don’t know what The First has planned or when it plans on opening that fucking manhole cover again and letting _all_ those vampires out! It could be tonight! It could be right now!” Buffy exclaimed, as she began pacing back and forth across the small room.

“We don’t know how many he’s already let out with Colleen and Eve! There could be ten, twenty, a hundred of them out there just waiting to attack us. You heard what it said – its sending them here soon, probably tonight!”

“And evil things never lie just to watch us piss ourselves,” Xander interjected.

Buffy glared up at him, her red eyes flashing. “Why would it need to lie, Xander? We’re already pissing ourselves! It’s _winning_ ,” she pointed out angrily.

“I need Spike back here to help fight these things – so finding him needs to be a priority. I need Willow not to be screwing around down in L.A, I need Giles to not be conspiring to dust Spike when we do find him! What the hell is with everyone!? Am I the only one who can see what’s happening?”

“No, I think we all get it, Buffy, it’s just … we’ve been here before,” Xander defended.

“No. You’re wrong. We haven’t been here before! Don’t you get it?! This is it! This is Custer’s Last Stand, and we are _not_ the Indians,” Buffy implored him.

“Native Americans,” Xander corrected, drawing a narrow-eyed, burning glare from Buffy.

“We are going to lose if we don’t get our shit together,” Buffy informed him.

“I get that, Buffy, and I think everyone is doing what they can. But, isn’t there some room here for discussion and compromise?” Xander suggested logically.

Buffy stopped pacing and turned her glittering, disconcerting eyes on him. “Honestly? No. This isn’t a democracy. I’m the Slayer. I’ve got a house full of girls that The First is just waiting to take out. They aren’t fighters. They aren’t anything but scared, little girls. And they’re my responsibility.

“The First has a Hellmouth full of uber-vamps just itching to get out in the world and suck it dry, and that’s my responsibility too.

“It’s not yours, it’s not Giles’, it’s not Willow’s. _It’s mine_. It all falls on me. So, when I say we need Spike to fight this thing, it’s because we need him to fight it! When I say I need a new weapon, it means I need it _now_ , not when you feel like getting around to it. But no one seems to put any merit in what I think anymore.”

“Your opinion of Spike might be highly over-inflated because you’re screwing him,” Xander suggested coarsely. “And I’ve got your new fucking weapon down in my truck.”

Buffy nodded angrily, crossing her arms over her chest defensively, her black hair shimmering over her shoulders. “Fine, I’m screwing him. But at least he’s a strong warrior, willing to fight, someone I can count on, not a whiny little ex-demon who does nothing but eat all the Fruit Loops and spend too much time in the bathroom, like the one you’re screwing.”

Xander’s mouth drew into a hard line and his eyes narrowed into slits. “We’re also your friends,” he pointed out through gritted teeth.

“It doesn’t really feel that way, Xan,” Buffy retorted sadly, before turning and leaving him standing in her room alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no! Now what? Tara and Willow are gone to L.A. to help Angel’s group get their leader back, and The First has threatened to send a not-so-welcoming committee to the house soon! And did Spike kill that Potential? Has he killed others? I promise we will find out soon! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Don’t relax yet. It's STILL going to get worse before it gets better! (This is not a drill!) I hope you're still enjoying the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	72. No Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike returns and he has some new friends.
> 
> You may think we’ve hit rock bottom in this chapter. We are close, but, errr ... Not quite yet … Strap in if you haven't already. This shit just got real.
> 
> Some direct quotes from ‘Empty Places’ Written by: Drew Z. Greenberg

* * *

 

After walking out on Xander, Buffy headed to the front door, ready to head out into the night to face whatever The First would be sending her way. As she reached the door she paused, her hand on the doorknob, the shovel leaning up against the wall catching her attention. The Potentials, along with Dawn and Anya, were gathered in small groups in the living room and dining room, talking furtively, clearly rattled by all the events of the last few hours.

Buffy picked up the shovel and turned around, standing in the foyer between the two rooms. She banged the end of it down on the tile floor a couple of times, getting everyone’s attention.

“If anyone else wants to do something stupid and die, dig your own fucking grave first,” she announced, tossing the shovel down in front of her with a clatter. “I’m tired of using my power to bury you.”

She looked around, meeting gazes that ranged from terrified to simply frightened, to indignant, to downright angry.

“No takers?” she asked sarcastically. “Good. Then do what you’re told: stay in this house. If you want to keep breathing, then don’t go out on the porch, don’t open the damn doors, don’t even peek out the windows. Do as you’re fucking told: STAY!”

Buffy whirled on her heel, her raven locks flying, and flung the front door open.

“What are you gonna do?” Kennedy asked from the living room.

“What I do best: kill vampires,” Buffy retorted before slamming the door closed behind herself.

Buffy retrieved her new weapon from the back of Xander’s large, white pickup truck, which was parked on the street in front of the house, and examined it. He’d welded a large battleax blade to a thick length of heavy, steel pipe, about four feet long. On the other end of the pipe was a stake made of some kind of very dark, hard wood – heart mahogany, perhaps – which was reinforced along its length with a cage made of four steel bands. The reinforcement left the sharp point of the wood exposed, along with some of the shaft, but would, possibly, keep it from breaking when shoved through the hardened chest of a Turok-Han.

Buffy twirled the heavy weapon in one hand, getting the feel for it. The balance was amazing. He must’ve put something heavy in the pipe on the end with the stake to get it to balance so perfectly against the heavy battleax blade.  She touched finger down to the blade and blood immediately welled up around it – sharp as a razor.

Buffy lifted her eyes to the front window of the house and saw Xander standing there, his arms crossed defiantly over his chest, watching her. She gave him a short nod of her head in acknowledgement, and he returned the gesture before pulling the heavy curtains over the window closed.

Buffy looked and saw that all the curtains had been closed, at least on the side of the house she could see. She nodded to herself, approving. She turned then and headed to the side of the house with her improved Turok-Han weapon in hand.  She was certain she wouldn’t have to hunt down any uber-vamps tonight, they would be coming to her. She just needed to stop them from ripping through the front door and devouring everyone inside.

“Simple,” she muttered under her breath as she began climbing up the trellis on the side of the house, heading for high ground on the roof where she could surveil the whole area around the house. She kept all her senses on alert for enemies approaching from different directions as she climbed up past the second-floor windows and pulled herself up onto the peak of the house.

She took a seat on the crown of the roof, the cool, December air chilling the exposed skin of her face and hands as she settled her weapon across her knees to wait. She had no idea how many Turok-Han had been released. She prayed it wasn’t more than she could handle.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

It didn’t take long for The First to make good on its threat. The sun had only been down about thirty minutes when Harbingers began showing up. Buffy gripped her weapon and watched from her rooftop perch, but they didn’t advance on the house. They surrounded it, guarding it, making sure no one could run, but kept their distance.  She’d deal with them later. They weren’t her main concern right now. If she couldn’t take down the uber-vamps, running wouldn’t do any good anyway.

It only took a few more minutes before Buffy felt the approach of the things that were her main concern – the Turok-Han.  She couldn’t tell exactly how many – more than one, less than a hundred. They were approaching the front of the house, coming up from the right along Revello Drive. She could feel the warnings stomping up and down her spine, telling her to run. She took a deep breath and forced herself to ignore those instincts, despite being sure they were giving her excellent advice.

Buffy dropped down from the crown of the house to the flat roof which covered the front porch to wait. She crouched down, trying to remain perfectly still, the stake/axe combo gripped securely in both hands.

And then they came into view. Three of them. Buffy silently and slowly let out the breath she’d been holding, still waiting and watching. No more showed up. Three … that was it. She didn’t feel any more approaching, just the ones that now stood in the street facing her house. Three. She could handle three, right? Sure … three. It wasn’t a hundred. It wasn’t even twenty. It was three. She could do this. Right?

They didn’t seem to notice her crouched there, up above them. Their full attention on the pounding hearts and thrumming blood of Potentials that were gathered up in the house, just waiting to be devoured.  Buffy bit her bottom lip – again, ow! Damn it! – and waited, biding her time, waiting for her opportunity to catch them by surprise. 

All three began walking in their ungainly gait toward the house, up the front walkway, one a little in front of the others. And still she waited. Just a little closer … a little bit … closer.

In a flash of raven hair and glittering red eyes, Buffy sprang, leaping off the roof at just the right moment. She swung the heavy, razor-sharp battleax at the neck of the first uber-vamp as she flew through the air, severing its head from its shoulders cleanly. As it crumbled into dust on the front walk, her feet slammed into the chest of the vamp that had been on its left, driving it to the ground with an audible thud.

Buffy rolled, using her momentum to bring her back to her feet in an instant, and swung the axe at the other vamp that was still standing. It had just turned its interested, surprised eyes on her when the weapon found its target, slicing through tissue and bone alike, sending its head rolling off in one direction as its body sunk to the ground. Both turned to dust in the next moment, and Buffy yowled in victory.

That celebration might’ve been a little premature, as the uber-vamp she’d knocked down had gained its feet and swiped one of its huge, powerful paws at her, sending her reeling back into Xander’s truck. It followed her and was there in an instant, smashing its fist at her face. Buffy ducked, and the creature’s hand crashed through the driver’s side window instead.

Buffy swung the axe at it as she deftly slipped away beneath its outstretched arm, catching it on the shoulder. The vamp roared in wordless fury and snatched at the weapon, but Buffy yanked it back, out of the Turok-Han’s reach. The Slayer backed out into the deserted street, never taking her eyes off the uber-vamp as it focused all its attention and primal hunger on her.

“That’s right … nummy snack here. Come and get me,” she taunted it, holding her weapon in both hands across the front of her body, just waiting for it to get near enough for her to strike again.

The uber-vamp charged at her with a growl. Buffy started to move, but realized it was coming too fast for her to adjust her weapon. Instead, she leapt into the air, somersaulting over the thing which charged her like a rampaging elephant, and landed behind it. The Turok-Han, expecting to meet resistance, had over-balanced itself, and went stumbling into another car parked across the street. 

Then Buffy was on the offensive, charging it like it had charged her, holding the sharp stake end of her weapon out in front of her like a jouster. Before the uber-vamp could turn back around to face her, she drove the stake through its back with a sickening crunch and squelch of breaking ribs and parting flesh. But it didn’t dust.

“What the hell?!” Buffy growled, yanking the stake back out of the squirming, yowling vampire. She’d no sooner pulled it out to try again, than the vamp finally, thankfully, disintegrated into a pile of dry, useless, primordial dirt.

Buffy felt a wave of relief wash over her, almost rapturous in its power, leaving her bent over, gasping for air, her hands resting on her thighs, still clasping her new best friend – the stakey-axe? The battlexey-stake? The uber-vamp duster? Hmmmm … Maybe ‘Dustinator®’.  

Buffy’s relief was short lived when her musings regarding the moniker for her new weapon were interrupted. She stood up and whirled around when she heard someone clapping, slowly and deliberately, and not far away – perhaps a few yards.

“Nice work, luv.”

“Spike!” Buffy exclaimed, taking an instinctive, relieved step toward him, but then stopping abruptly, gripping the Dustinator® tightly in her right hand. She studied her husband suspiciously, her dream and the vision of the dead Potential, Eve, still fresh in her mind.

“He didn’t think ya could do it – take out all three o’ the manky buggers – but I told him not to underestimate ya,” Spike continued, slowly sauntering closer to her.

“He, who?” Buffy asked cautiously. She had no doubt it was Spike, not The First, not a trick. She could feel him just as surely as she could feel her own heart pounding in her chest.

“Buddy o’ mine,” Spike replied casually, “Made a few new friends since ya left me to rot down in that cave.”

“Left you to…?” Buffy began, hurt and confused and a little angry. “I didn’t leave you to rot! I tried—”

“Oh! _Tried_ , is it? Well, ‘tried’ doesn’t get it anymore, does it? No room in your world for someone who bloody tries his best, is there? No room in my world for one either, then,” he growled at her angrily, still prowling forward toward her.

Buffy backed up slowly, her leopard-spotted brow drawn together in confusion. “What … what are you talking about? Spike? What’s going on?”

“Got my balls outta that vise o’ yours is what. Got my mojo back, don’t I? Not your little bitch anymore,” he informed her crossly, still stalking forward.

“Spike…?” Buffy drawled out, gripping the weapon in her hand even tighter as she backed away from him. “What have you done?”

“Should be more concerned about what I’m _gonna_ do. To you. To those nice, ripe, juicy peaches in there. Reclaiming my place at the top of the food chain, I am,” he informed her with a smirk.

“Spike, whatever you’ve done, we can fix it,” Buffy assured him. “Just … calm down and—“

“Don’t need fixin’,” he interrupted her, his eyes narrowing into angry, blue slits. “Just got one more thing to say to you before I take you out, Slayer.”

“I hate to remind you of this, but you’ve never been able to take me out, Spike, but go ahead … what do you have to say?” Buffy retorted, her own ire rising further, her red eyes beginning to glow, the golden flecks in them glimmering with fiery anger.

Spike stepped up right in front of her and reached out a hand, letting a length of her hair run smoothly through his fingers. “The whole Wild Kingdom goth look? Doesn’t suit you, Slayer. Makes ya look _desperate_ ,” he announced snidely, turning his gaze back from her hair to meet her glowing, red eyes. “And I think you’ll find I’m a little stronger than the last time ya saw me.”

“Yeah? Well, so am I,” she retorted. “So, what now? We’re just gonna beat each other to a pulp because you think I didn’t try hard enough?”

Spike shrugged and hooked his thumbs over his belt buckle, splaying his fingers out over his groin casually. “Could do … or could have a bit of a tumble before I drain you. Whichever you’d rather, pet.”

“Tempting,” Buffy quipped. “But I’m thinking if you were gonna attack me and drain me and all that, you would’ve done something about it by now. You aren’t really known for your patience, Spike.”

“Well, now, my friend, she does have you there,” another voice came from behind Spike, a smooth, male voice tinged with a southern accent.

Buffy looked up as a tall man with sandy brown hair and eyes almost as blue as Spike’s stepped out from the front of Xander’s truck and into the road. Although he was reasonably good looking, there was something just _wrong_ about the man, something off. What made him most disconcerting was the dichotomy of the feeling of corruption he projected in comparison to his attire, which was all black except for the white of a clerical collar, like a priest.

“Reckon she does,” Spike agreed amiably, taking a step back from Buffy.

“But you did say as she was quick on the uptake, for a dirty little whore,” the man continued, walking over to them.

“She has ‘er moments,” Spike agreed, smirking.

Buffy’s leopard-spotted brow furrowed in confusion. “Who the hell are you, and … who the fuck are you calling a whore!?” she growled, widening her stance to be prepared to battle on two fronts.

“Mind your manners, now, little lady,” the man warned sternly. “No need for vulgarities.

“You can call me Caleb, though I don’t think you’ll be doing so for over long, since I reckon your end, as they say, is nigh.

“And you must be the one and only, the original, accept-no-substitutes Slayer,” the man continued, stepping up next to Spike and addressing Buffy, his hands clasped behind his back, appearing as casual as Spike.

“I don’t die so easily, or did Spike forget to tell you that part?” Buffy snarled at the man. “In fact, I’m almost impossible to kill.”

“Ooo! A challenge! I do love a good challenge, little girl. Well, I do admit that William here has imparted some wisdom on me in that regard. How did it go, again?” Caleb asked, looking at Spike.

“Can’t kill ‘er with force. You gotta work from the inside. To kill this girl... you have to love her,” Spike answered, never taking his eyes off Buffy, his lips curved into a wicked smirk. “Was somethin’ my grandsire taught me. You remember him, pet? Angelus?

“First, ya rip her heart out, then ya crush her soul … after that all ya got left is an empty shell of uninhabited Slayer flesh, ripe for the plucking – like a sweet, juicy plum.”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed, and warning bells started blaring in her mind. She looked from the two men in front of her to the house and back again, her panic rising.

“You’re stalling me … what have you done!? Spike! What have you done!?” she repeated frantically, but Spike only smiled at her wickedly, running his tongue enticingly over his teeth.

“Reckon you’ll find out in … 5, 4, 3—” he mocked as he and Caleb began moving out of the street, toward the houses on the other side, away from Chez Summers.

Buffy ran toward the house, screaming a warning at the top of her lungs for them to get out, to run. She’d only gotten half-way up the walkway to the front door before an enormous explosion rocked the house, sending her flying backwards. She hit the door of Xander’s truck with a crunch of metal and a crack of bone, which jarred the Dustinator® loose from her hands, sending it clattering to the sidewalk.

Buffy grunted in pain, holding her bruised ribs with one hand, and began forward again as fire engulfed the house, blazing in every window. She made it up the front steps and had almost reached the front door when another powerful explosion rocked the Craftsman style house off its foundations. The entire building imploded in on itself, collapsing in a heap of wood and metal and death.

A heavy timber fell from the ceiling of the porch, striking Buffy in the head and knocking her down, then more debris fell, threatening to bury her beneath it. She lay there for a moment, dazed and confused, her mind unable to process what was happening … what _had_ happened. Her ears rang, and her head swam, nothing was making sense, it was all a blur, a chaotic jumble of emotions and ideas, until one thought hit her: Dawn.

Dawn. Dawn was in there. And Xander and Anya … and … all those girls.

“DAWN!” Buffy screamed, pulling herself free from the timbers trapping her, slithering out of the crisscrossed boards and beams and pieces of her life that were trying to bury her. She tumbled out of the pile, falling hard onto the front walk, but she barely noticed the pain now. She turned and screamed for her sister again, then for Xander, trying to find a way into the burning pile of rubble.

She dug, flinging boards and blocks and pieces of furniture out of the way, using every ounce of her super-charged power trying to get in, trying to reach them, the whole time screaming her sister’s name. Her hands were bruised, swollen, cut and bleeding, and burned by the fires that raged, but she barely noticed. In fact, she barely noticed anything at all, her only focus was on getting inside, finding them, saving them.

Then something else floated into her field of consciousness: the smell of gas wafting up on the light breeze. The consequences of a gas leak in a burning mass of timber registered with her only a few moments before the entire pile of rubble exploded again in a giant fire-ball that reached high into the night sky. She’d had just enough time to leap back, diving and rolling under Xander’s truck before that third explosion hit.

The truck rocked atop her, its shocks juddering violently under the pressure from the explosion, and burning pieces of the house rained down over the whole area. She thought that this must be what rain in hell was like … fire falling from the sky. She must be in hell. That was it … that was the only thing that made sense. There was no way she could still be alive and hurt this much. It was simply impossible to have her heart ripped out and still be alive.

“Dawn … oh, God … Dawnie,” she cried, lying on her back beneath the truck, hot tears burning her eyes and rolling down her soot-stained cheeks. She’d failed. She didn’t protect them. Didn’t protect Dawn. Or Xander, or Anya or any of the girls. She hadn’t even protected their annoying, hostage-geek. She had failed. Utterly and completely.

“Now that is a thing of beauty,” Caleb remarked, stepping back out into the street to admire his handiwork.

“A bit fiery for my tastes,” Spike complained, brushing embers from his coat and out of his hair before they ignited and dusted him.

“Ahhh, the smell o’ roasted whores at Christmastime,” Caleb breathed, his eyes closing in rapture. “Praise the Lord and hallelujah! There is simply nothing more righteous than ridding the world of so many dirty little sluts.”

Buffy roared in fury and rolled out from under Xander’s truck and into the road. She was up and charging at the preacher in a heartbeat, her burned and bleeding hands curled into fists of steel.

Buffy swung on him, but Caleb blocked the blow, delivering his own powerful punch right to her solar-plexus, making the Slayer stumble back and doubling her over in pain.

“Ah, ah, ah,” the preacher warned disdainfully. “Mind your manners. I do believe I did warn you once.”

Spike grabbed Buffy’s arms from behind, twisting and lifting them both up behind her painfully in his powerful grip. She wheezed and coughed, trying to get her breath back from Caleb’s punch, while struggling against the vampire, trying to get free. Each move she made to try and wrench out of his grasp sent daggers of pain shooting through her shoulders, stabbing all the way through her torso. More tears sprang to her eyes from frustration and pain as she tried in vain to get free of Spike’s hold.

“Oh, now, look...Things don't go exactly your way, so here come the waterworks. Ain't that just like a woman? Manipulative bitches, one and all,” Caleb taunted. “Best save some o’ those crocodile tears, girlie, cos you’ll find that nothing will be going your way ever again.”

“I’m gonna kill you,” she snarled, still trying to pull free from Spike’s iron grip, but with no luck.

“You're angry... frustrated, scared. I like that in a girl,” Caleb mocked as Spike continued to hold her, his hands digging brutally into her flesh as he continued to twist and lift up on her arms. She rose up to her tiptoes to try and release some of the pressure, but Spike just lifted her wrists higher, not allowing her any relief.

“You really should relax a little,” the preacher continued speaking calmly, as if she weren’t thrashing against Spike, and stepped closer as he spoke. “Look at where you are. History's gonna look back at you, at me, at this place, and they're gonna see the glory. Great things are happenin' now, right here. All this? It's all gonna be a part of the great sweepin' tide of change, and you're gonna be a part of it. Now, why would you wanna miss that? More importantly, why would you want to get in its way?”

“I guess I'm just ornery,” Buffy growled out, as the preacher came within reach of her. The Slayer leaned back into Spike and lifted both her feet off the ground, ignoring the searing pain in her shoulders, kicking at Caleb’s chest with all her strength.

The preacher was rocked back, stumbling. His back hit a parked car on the other side of the street, momentarily knocking him off balance. Spike was also knocked backwards, his grip on her jarred loose.

Buffy threw herself on the surprised preacher, slamming her burned and battered fists into his face before he could recover, rocking his head to the left and then the right, sending blood spraying from his mouth and nose. He tried to get his feet back beneath him and had gotten his arms up to block her blows, but she changed tactics then. She clamped her hands on either side of his head and slammed it back against the parked car, smashing his skull through the safety glass of the driver’s window. Caleb’s eyes rolled back and his legs gave way, sliding drunkenly down to the pavement next to the car.

Buffy kicked the preacher two or three times as he slumped down on the ground, her fury not waning one little bit. Grunts of pain jerked from the man’s bloody lips along with sprays of blood. He fell to his side limply, unable to defend himself from the Slayer’s frenzied onslaught.

Buffy growled and screamed in wordless fury as she picked up a shattered piece of her house: a four-foot-long section of two-by-four that had been splintered on both ends. She lifted it and drove it through Caleb’s soft, exposed stomach with all her considerable strength, embedding it there with a squelch of gore and blood. Another fount of red burbled from his mouth, spreading out in a puddle around his slack face.

A warning of alarm blistered up and down her spine and she whirled on her husband, who was approaching from behind her, intent on coming to Caleb’s aid. She faced Spike then, her chest heaving with adrenaline and effort, her red eyes flashing with pain and fury, her empty hands curled into fists.

“DAWN WAS IN THERE!” she screamed at him, pulling her fist back and punching him in the jaw with all her strength, whipping his head to the side violently.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!?” she continued to scream at him, drawing back and punching him again, whipping his head back and splattering blood from his nose. “DAWN!!”

She shoved him then, knocking him back against Xander’s truck. “DID YOU HEAR ME!? “she screamed at him as she advanced, drawing her fist back to pummel him again. “DAWN!”

Spike was ready for her this time, though. He grabbed her fist before she could swing and twisted violently, wrenching her arm up behind her as he pulled her toward him. Spike wrapped his other arm around her waist, pinning her other arm against her side, and held her body against his in a tight, painful embrace. Their bodies fit together perfectly, but no longer as passionate lovers, no longer as trusted allies, no longer as soulmates – only as enemies, betrayed and abandoned.  

“I heard ya,” he purred in a low, honied tone. “You only hurt the ones you love, pet,” he rumbled, before capturing her lips in a brutal, bruising, vicious kiss. The kiss ended as suddenly and violently as it had begun.

“BASTARD!” Buffy hissed at him before spitting blood and ash and the horrible taste of misery in Spike’s face. She growled then and brought a knee up to crush his dangly bits, still trying to pull her aching arm out of his grasp.

Spike laughed spitefully, turning deftly to the side so her knee hit him in the thigh. “Knew there was a reason I liked bints in long, heavy skirts,” he mocked her. “Made it near impossible for them t’ knee ya in the jewels, it did. Much more civilized, that. Ahhh, those were the bloody days,” he sighed wistfully.

Buffy snarled in frustration and began to lift her knee up again, this time to bring her boot down on his foot, but she was thwarted when Caleb wrapped his hand in her hair and jerked her back. She grunted in pain and her eyes went wide with shocked surprise.

Spike smirked at her. “Bloody delicious! Didn’t see that comin’, then, did ya?” he taunted. “Pain’s not over yet, luv. In fact, it’s just begun,” he informed her contemptuously before stepping to one side, releasing her completely.

Buffy made a move to pull free of the preacher’s grasp, but he yanked on her hair ruthlessly, and wrapped a hand around her throat like a steel vice, cutting off her air and threatening to crush her windpipe.

Buffy could feel Caleb’s hot, wet breath next to her ear before he spoke, and she shuddered with the wrongness of it as she struggled to breathe, tearing at his fingers with her nails to no effect.

“Now, William is fully and wholly correct. I hear tell that a Slayer fights alone – all prophesied and divined. But, like all filthy women, you’ve cheated and lied, not following the right and proper rules. You’ve never truly been alone, little lady, but I swear on all that’s holy, you will be. Before you die, you’ll know what it means to be _alone_.”

Buffy’s head swam, and stars began flickering over her vision, which was beginning to tunnel into blackness from lack of oxygen. The last thing Buffy saw was the passenger’s window of Xander’s truck coming forward at incredible speed to meet her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ARRRRGGGHHHHH!! WHAT?!? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Don’t relax yet. There will be a short respite from the tension in the next chapter (but the angst will continue uninterrupted, never fear!). It's STILL going to get worse before it gets better! YES! I mean it! (This is not a drill!) I hope you're still enjoying (?) the story. Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	73. Good Slayer, Bad Slayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone shows up to pull Buffy out of her pity-party.
> 
> Some direct quotes from ‘Dirty Girls’ Written by: Drew Goddard

* * *

 

Buffy moaned, lifting a hand to her face, gently feeling her nose, her forehead, her eyes, her lips and teeth, trying to figure out where all the blood had come from. The answer was: all of the above.

She rolled over on the rough pavement and pushed up onto her hands and knees. The movement made her head twirl like a top and she felt her gorge rising as the blood she’d swallowed while unconscious made a return engagement. Buffy’s body spasmed and retched, her stomach forcing the coagulating blood back up, expelling it in a violent surge of brown-red vomit that splashed over the pavement beneath her.

She gasped, trying to breathe, trying to stop the uncontrollable heaving of her stomach, which continued long after there was anything left to bring up. Finally, her body relinquished, still queasy, but no longer rippling with tremors of sickness, and she sat back on her heels.

She felt like she’d been run over by a Mack truck … perhaps she had. She looked around and wondered how long she’d been lying in the road. She didn’t see any tire tracks on her clothes though, so probably not a truck, just a preacher and … Spike.

Then she remembered why her chest hurt so much. Dawn. Xander. Anya. The Potentials. It all came rushing back to her, and another wave of violent nausea struck her, making her lurch forward again as her body heaved, her stomach contracting painfully. 

After the spasms subsided for the second time, she pulled herself up, leaning heavily on Xander’s truck, which looked like it had been in a bloody, fiery, violent warzone. It had, she realized. Buffy took some shaky steps around the truck, using the hood for support, and looked at her house. What used to be her house. What used to be her _home_.

It was gone. Burned to ashes. Nothing remained but a hole in the ground where the basement had been, filled with smoldering coals that used to be her life.

And everyone she loved was gone, too. Not just the people inside the house, but Spike, as well. Gone.

She couldn’t stop the tears that welled up in her eyes as she stumbled forward toward the house, honestly unable to process the reality in front of her. It was gone. Dawn was gone. Spike was gone. Her world was gone. Everything that she’d been fighting for was gone. She’d failed. She’d failed everyone.

Buffy turned away, her soul shattered, unable to look at it another moment. She started back down the walkway toward the street and kicked the end of the weapon that Xander had made for her. Xander. The thought of him made her heart constrict again as she bent down and picked it up.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled through her tears as she started walking dazedly down the sidewalk. “I’m so, so sorry.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy wandered around the deserted town for what seemed hours, crying, praying, apologizing, and begging for forgiveness the whole while. As the dawn began to light the eastern sky, she finally looked up, exhausted and utterly shattered, and found herself in front of Angel’s old mansion. She staggered down the steps into the garden and tried the door. It opened easily, with only a small squeak of rusty hinges as protest.

It looked like no one had been here in years, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. There were a few odd pieces of furniture scattered here and there, but not much. Of course, to be fair, there hadn’t been a lot when Angel lived here. She roamed through a few rooms on the first floor, a couple of bedrooms, a den, a bathroom, the kitchen, not really having any purpose, her mind a haze of grief and exhaustion.

When she opened a door in the kitchen, though, she felt her heart break again. The door opened into the garage, and there, to greet her in all its glory, was Spike’s black DeSoto.

“Spike…” she cried, her voice barely audible, slurred with tears and heartbreak. “What happened to you?”

Buffy let her weapon drop to the floor with a clatter as she moved slowly forward toward the car. She pulled the passenger door open with a scrape and squeal of protesting metal and collapsed into the front seat.

She sat there in a daze, her mind simply unable to fathom everything that had happened. She felt numb, mentally, emotionally, and physically, as her body and mind tried to defend her from the agony surrounding her.

She reached forward and opened the glove box, letting it fall open with a small ‘thunk’. She slowly reached inside, moving like a zombie, and extracted the silver flask. Opening it, Buffy lifted it to her nose and sniffed, but she couldn’t smell anything past the blood that clogged her nostrils. How long had the bourbon been in here? Had it turned into turpentine? She didn’t really care if it had turned into arsenic. She lifted it to her bloodied lips and drank. It was horrible. It burned. And she deserved that. She deserved to burn. She had failed them all.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 “Yo! B!” a voice rang through the mansion, rousing Buffy from her fitful, nightmare-filled sleep in the front seat of the car.

She moaned and rubbed her head. There had not been enough bourbon to account for the way she felt; she’d never had a hangover like this in her life.

And then it all came rushing back, bowling her down like a freight train. Again. 

She closed her eyes and pulled her coat up over her head. Whoever was yelling could just go fuck themselves.

“Buffy! I know you’re here! You left your blood all over the floor!”

The door to the DeSoto opened, the screeching of the metal hinges enough to send daggers of pain knifing through Buffy’s brain.

“There you are. Man, you aren’t easy to find, B!” Faith declared. “What the fuck happened to your house?”

“Exploded,” Buffy answered in a rough, hoarse voice, not moving or uncovering her head.

“Yeah, no shit!” Faith replied sarcastically. “Any particular reason?”

“Easier than painting it,” Buffy retorted just as sarcastically.

“Oh, yeah, no doubt,” the other Slayer agreed as she bent down and picked up the weapon that Xander had made from where Buffy had dropped it on the garage floor.

Faith backed up a couple of steps and whipped the axe through the air, then flipped it deftly in her hands and jabbed the air with the stake. “Cool toy. Can I have one?”

“Take it,” Buffy replied, still not moving.

“So, the little witches say there’s a big deal going down, thought I could help,” Faith offered, still whirling the Dustinator® around skillfully.

“You can’t,” Buffy asserted from beneath her coat. “No one can. Go away.”

“What? That doesn’t sound like you, B. You were always the gung-ho one. I was always the ‘fuck-it’ one. What’s the sitch?” Faith persisted, leaning the weapon up against the wall.

“C’mon, B! Drop me into the fight, tell me who to hit,” she insisted, leaning in through the open door of the car and pulling Buffy’s coat off of her. “I haven’t had a really good tumble in a long time, kinda itchin’ to get back into it.”

“You’re going to have one if you don’t get the fuck out and leave me alone,” Buffy insisted, sitting up and snatching her coat back from Faith.

“Whoa! Dude! Who kicked you in the teeth … and turned your hair black … and your eyes red … and … are you part giraffe now?” Faith asked, her brows drawn together in confusion.

“I’m not a fucking giraffe! What the fuck, Faith!?” Buffy demanded, giving up and sliding out of the car. “Haven’t you ever heard of a fucking leopard!?”

“Are you actually Buffy? Cos you drop the f-bomb like it’s hot, girl, plus the fangs and hair…” Faith wondered as she backed up and let the other woman stand up. “Wait! Are you the bad Slayer now? Am I the good Slayer?”

Buffy rolled her eyes, which was a huge mistake. “Gonna puke,” she announced, making Faith jump back, grabbing the Dustinator® as she stepped out of the garage and back into the kitchen, out of the line of rancid bourbon vomit.

Faith handed Buffy a glass of water when she came into the kitchen a few minutes later. Buffy took it and sniffed it warily, wondering if it was as old as the whiskey.

“Fresh, look …” Faith demonstrated by turning on the taps in the sink.

Buffy walked over and splashed cool water over her face, rinsing out her mouth and trying to get the coagulated blood out of her nose.

“If this works, maybe the shower works?” Faith suggested as she jumped up to sit on the counter next to the sink. “Smells like you could use one.”

Buffy didn’t stand up but turned her disconcerting red cat eyes on the other Slayer, and sneered, “Thanks.”

Faith shrugged. “Hey, if I can’t tell you when you smell like something the cat dragged in from the sewer, then who can? I mean, what are friends for?”

“Since when are we friends?” Buffy retorted, finally standing up. She just let the water drip off her face, having nothing clean to wipe it on.

“Point,” Faith agreed. “But since when are you all Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, on ‘ludes?”

“Well, I guess that’s better than being a giraffe,” Buffy grumbled.

“Not so sure,” Faith disagreed, jumping down off the counter. “Giraffes are cool. Have you ever seen them fighting with their necks? It’s wicked, man!

“So, ya gonna tell me what’s happening, or do I get to just keep playing twenty-questions until I figure it out?”

 Buffy sighed and closed her eyes, rubbing a spot between her brows that throbbed. “Do you have any money?” she asked after a few moments.

“You want me to _pay_ _you_ to tell me what’s going on?” Faith asked suspiciously. “Now I _know_ you’re the bad Slayer.”

Buffy sighed in exasperation and dropped her hand, looking up at the other Slayer. “No. I want you to go get me some clothes to change into that don’t smell like … _this_ , and maybe some food that I can keep down,” Buffy clarified. “A bottle of whiskey wouldn’t hurt either.”

“Is there a new kind of whiskey that keeps you from puking that I don’t know about?” Faith wondered, drawing a gimlet glare from Buffy.

Faith held her hands up in surrender and headed out of the kitchen into the main room.

“And don’t get me any clothes that you like,” Buffy called after her, following Faith into the other room. “Just regular jeans and a t-shirt, no Saturday night skank fashion.”

“Some things never change, Little Miss Tightly-Wound,” Faith called back as she headed out into the walled garden. “You need to get that stick out of your ass and loosen your bone, Wilma.”

Buffy dropped down onto a very old, dusty couch and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. “If you only knew…” she muttered under her breath as she heard Faith’s footsteps on the stairs leading up to the street.

Tears stung her eyes, images of Spike flashing in her mind – laughing, flirting, teasing, passionate, yearning, loving, even angry Spike – every image broke her heart all over again, twisting the dagger in her chest until she couldn’t breathe.

She knew what she had to do … there was no choice. Spike and his new friend, Caleb, had to pay. Pay for Dawn. Pay for Xander and Anya. Pay for all those girls.  

She touched the infinity necklace she wore and a sob broke free from her heart, shaking her whole body.  “God, Spike, what did they do to you?” she cried as her tears began to fall again in earnest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What will happen when two Slayers meet the two super-charged vessels of The First Evil? We’ll find out next. 
> 
> Check out that banner! Isn't it the coolest with the DeSoto and the fires and the grim reaper? Not to mention super-charged Buffy. PB is so awesome at these!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! This big pot of angst, tension, and horror will come to a rolling boil in the next chapter. Hang in there! When it boils over, the water may dampen the horror a bit after that and a light might appear from the darkness! Have faith!
> 
> I hope you're still enjoying (?) the story. (Or maybe it’s like a train wreck and you just can’t look away, that’s cool too.). Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	74. And Then There Was One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Faith set off to find Caleb and Spike.
> 
> Some direct quotes from ‘Dirty Girls’ Written by: Drew Goddard

****

* * *

 

**Later that day:**

“So, B getting her freak on with another vamp,” Faith repeated, shaking her head in wonder. “Who would’a thought? I’m definitely the good Slayer now,” she declared.

“Can’t really figure out the marrying him bit though. What’s the 411 on that nonsense?” Faith continued, sitting on the dusty couch next to the cleaner, less-smelly, and slightly less sick Buffy. “Oh, wait! Are you knocked up!?”

Buffy glared at her over the rim of her paper coffee cup – Faith had _not_ brought her any whiskey – her red eyes shooting daggers at the other girl.

“ _You_ knocked _him_ up!” Faith amended, smirking.

“Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are?” Buffy wondered.

Faith shrugged. “Mighta heard that time or two,” she admitted. “But I’m too pretty to care.”

Buffy closed her eyes and shook her head, taking another sip of the caffeinated heaven in her cup. She still wished she had whiskey, though.

“So, ya go and get all juiced up with the extra demon mojo, and now you get to use it to kill your vampire husband. Sounds like a really-twisted episode of ‘Dark Shadows’,” Faith observed, summing up everything that Buffy had relayed to her over the last couple of hours.

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed softly, not opening her eyes, fighting to get all her emotions shoved back into that little box in her soul that she liked to hide them in. The problem was, there were just too many and they weren’t all fitting properly. She’d shove her heartbreak in and her grief would pop out, or her anger, or her despair.

“Sorry about the brat and Xander and the house and all,” Faith offered as sympathetically as she was able to. The dark Slayer had never been great at sharing emotions – empathy wasn’t her strong suit, but she did feel sorry for all that had been lost. “I liked that house,” she added as she fiddled absently with Spike’s silent-communication amulet that Buffy had given her, which now hung around Faith’s neck.

Buffy had found it in the pocket of her jeans when she’d changed clothes. She had re-tied the broken leather cord and given it to Faith – obviously Spike wouldn’t be needing it again. Buffy had shown the other Slayer how to work it and they’d practiced a little, but it seemed more trouble than it was worth now. Nothing Buffy was imparting now was any big secret, after all.

Buffy nodded slowly, holding the warm cup of coffee between her hands, still up near her lips. “It was a good house,” she agreed softly, clamping her eyes closed even harder, trying desperately to will her tears not to fall. She needed anger now, rage, fury, wrath, not tears.

“All my clothes were in there,” Buffy whispered, taking another sip of the coffee.

“Yeah, that’s a bitch,” Faith agreed, standing up and stretching her back. “The new ones look good though.”

Buffy looked down and sighed. The blue jeans had so many holes and slashes cut in them that she was sure they were made of more ‘hole’ than denim. The black t-shirt was, at least, not full of holes, not low cut or off the shoulder, and not see-through, however the logo on the front said: ‘I’m not always a bitch. Just kidding. Go fuck yourself.’

“So, where do we find these two uni-bombers … uhh, duo-bombers?” Faith asked, walking around the room, unconsciously swiping a finger at the thick layer of dust covering the mantle. 

“I don’t know,” Buffy sighed, finishing the coffee in her cup and setting it down. “But I was thinking that maybe I can track them … or at least Spike,” she told Faith, standing up and tapping a finger on her nose.

“Neat trick,” Faith approved.  “Dibs on driving,” she announced quickly, turning and heading for the garage.

“Driving? There’ll be driving? I thought we’d be pedestrian-ing,” Buffy suggested, following the other Slayer into the kitchen.

“No way, B! With this sweet ride here? It’s just begging us to let its horses run free,” Faith assured her, as she made her way into the garage.

“It’s not a little red corvette,” Buffy pointed out, rolling her eyes, stopping in the doorway between the kitchen and the garage.

“It’s better! It’s a top of the line, 1959 DeSoto Fireflite! Got a wedge-head 383, V8, dual exhaust, four-barrel carb, 121 top speed – maybe more if Spike bore out the carburetor – and is anything sexier than these tail fins?” Faith asked, walking around the car and running her hand lovingly over said sexiness.

Buffy blew out an exasperated breath. “I don’t have the keys,” she informed her car-enthusiast companion.

“No problem, B! I’ll just hot-wire it,” Faith assured her, opening the driver’s door with a squeal of un-oiled hinges, and slipping behind the wheel. Faith started fiddling with something Buffy couldn’t see. Buffy had no idea how long the car had been parked here, if the battery was good or even if there was gas in it. She really would rather just walk. Walking was of the good… she was a walker from way back.

Buffy sighed again, giving up her hope of walking when the car turned over once and started.

“Sweeeet!” Faith declared appreciatively as the motor purred smoothly, looking at Buffy. “Let’s go Scooby Doo – time to sniff out the bad guys!”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

It took Buffy several false starts, U-turns, and back-tracks to finally get the hang of tracking a scent, all the while Faith waited in the car, listening to the radio, only moving the DeSoto when Buffy seemed certain of the correct direction.

It was especially difficult in town, with so many different smells assaulting her olfactory senses, but once they’d gotten to the edge of town, it had been easier. In fact, there was only one road, so it had gotten quite simple, so Buffy gave up her pedestrian status and got in with Faith to ride.

The trick had been to figure out when Spike had turned off the road, made more difficult by riding in a car full of his scent. But, she’d finally managed it, after driving past the turn-off about a mile before realizing she’d lost the trail.

It was after dark when they came in sight of an old, stone building, down a bumpy, dirt track, out in the middle of nowhere. Faith killed the lights and the motor and coasted to a stop behind some trees, maybe a hundred yards away from it.

The faded sign above the door, which was partially covered in overgrown vines, announced it as Shadow Valley Vineyards. Light from fires or candles glowed and flickered in the dirt-encrusted windows, confirming that someone, or something, was inside.

“What is this place?” Faith asked, keeping her voice low as she and Buffy climbed out of the windows of the DeSoto, not daring to open the squeaking doors of the old, disused car.

“I have no idea,” Buffy admitted, scanning the area as they skirted around the building, keeping their distance, staying hidden in the deep shadows beneath the trees. “But there are Bringers all around it, so it must be something important.”

Faith looked into the dark, but honestly didn’t see anything or anyone. She gripped the Dustinator® tightly in her hand, on alert, ready to fight.

“Well, do we wait for an invitation, or just crash the party?” she asked after they’d circled the building completely, ending up, once again, in sight of what appeared to be the one and only entrance.

Buffy shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m thinking crash … as in their skulls crashing against something hard,” the super-charged Slayer suggested, gripping a dagger in her right hand tightly.

Faith grinned. “Loving that plan,” she agreed as they both moved as one out of the shadows and into the moonlight of the clearing around the building.

Their presence did not go unnoticed.  Bringers seemed to appear from nowhere, popping up like magic in front of them, guarding the entrance to the vineyard’s winery. However, even with their superior numbers and demonic strength, they were no match for the two Slayers.

Faith lashed out at them with the razor-sharp battleax-end of her weapon, staying out of reach of their daggers with the superior reach it possessed. Bringers dropped like flies, their throats slit viciously by the axe as she moved forward through the throng. Any that managed to block it with an arm or their own blade still sustained enough of a blow to knock them back, leaving them as easy pickings for Buffy, who drove her own sharp dagger into their throats or hearts as she followed Faith’s one-woman wrecking crew through the crowd.

When the two Slayers reached the old, battered, heavy wooden door of the building, they were both breathing hard, but exuberant from the fight. The ground in their wake was a sea of brown-robed bodies soaked in blood; any that weren’t dead soon would be. Slayers: 27 Harbingers: 0

Buffy caught her breath before Faith and took a moment to concentrate on sensing what was behind the door as she waited. Spike, for sure was there. ‘ _No. Not Spike’_ , she corrected herself, ‘ _A vampire … the vampire who killed Eve, the vampire who helped Caleb blow up her house. Not Spike. Not your Spike._ ’

Her heart constricted with the thought of Dawn, of her friends, of the girls, and with the loss of Spike. But she didn’t have time for that now. She couldn’t wallow in pity, in sorrow and grief, she had to embrace the fury and concentrate on vengeance.

“How many more do we get to kill?” Faith asked quietly, pulling Buffy from her thoughts.

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sounds like several more Bringers, one vampire, and the preacher. There’s some kind of …” Buffy tilted her head and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate and listen. “Some kind of grinding and banging … I don’t know, it’s sort of muffled. Not sure what that is,” she revealed, opening her eyes and looking at Faith.

“So, a walk in the park,” Faith declared confidently, wiping the blood off her axe on the robe of the nearest dead Bringer.

“Not exactly,” Buffy warned. “Caleb and the vamp … they’re hyped up on something – stronger than you’d expect.”

“So are you, B,” Faith grinned, still confident. “I say we kick their asses.”

Buffy tilted her head in a nod of agreement. “That’s what we’re here for.”

The two Bringers just inside the door tumbled down the stairs in a flurry of brown robes and a spray of bright red blood, landing at the bottom in a heap of dead flesh.  More Bringers rushed up to meet the Slayers, but Faith took them out with a ‘snicker-snack’ of her blade, and Buffy pushed them over the railing, dropping them the fifteen or so feet to the floor below. Buffy followed them, jumping down to the hard, stone floor, landing in a crouch, as several more Bringers started up the stairs.

Faith swung her weapon at the blind mice as they charged her, killing the next two, but only wounding the third as it got in too close, making her long weapon nearly useless. She used the heavy steel handle to block the Bringer’s blade as it swept it at her abdomen. Metal screeched against metal as the two weapons met violently. She brought the stake end of the pipe around, using it as a club to hit the Bringer in the face, knocking it off balance. She hit it again, sending it flying over the railing to join its brethren on the floor below, but had no time to celebrate as more Bringer’s charged her, two at a time.

“B! Little help here!” Faith called, backing up the stairs, trying to keep a distance between herself and the robed figures so she could use the axe, her best weapon against them.

Suddenly, the two hooded figures directly in front of her dropped as if they’d been shot, and she saw Buffy standing behind them, a bloody dagger in each hand.  

“Thanks,” Faith breathed, gasping for breath.

“De nada,” Buffy shot back, turning around and heading back down the stairs, dropping one of the daggers along the way and pulling out a stake.

“Well now,” the preacher declared, emerging from behind some casks of wine, just as the two Slayers reached the bottom of the stairs. “You girls are just burning with righteousness, aren’t you?”

Buffy and Faith turned as one to face him, weapons at the ready.

“Problem is, you think you're blazing like suns, when really you're burning like matchsticks in the face of an endless sea of darkness,” he continued as Spike appeared behind him, thumbs hooked over his belt, looking smug.

Both men strolled casually forward toward the two Slayers as the preacher kept talking.

“You having fun? Now, I hope my boys haven't worn you out too much? I need you fit for when I purify you. Because the end, as they say, is nigh,” Caleb finished, coming to a stop a couple of feet from Buffy and Faith.

“If you mean _your_ end, then you’re right,” Buffy threatened, keeping her eyes fixed on Caleb, not trusting herself to even look at Spike.

“No, little lady, I do mean yours. Well, not just yours, Slayers – all of them – it’s the end of the line, so to speak. It wouldn’t be mannerly of me to not thank you first, though. It was mighty kind of you to bring the other one with you. Saves me and my boys the trouble of tracking her down,” the preacher continued.

Without any warning, Caleb stepped forward and drew his fist back at the same time. Buffy saw it coming but couldn’t react or warn Faith in time. The preacher hit Faith in the jaw, sending her flying back through the air like a ragdoll. The Slayer hit a solid stone wall at near-terminal velocity, her head cracking against it audibly, her body hitting next with a sickening thud. She tumbled to the floor limply, out cold, the Dustinator® falling from her grasp and bouncing on the stone floor with a clatter.

“Finish that one first,” Caleb ordered Spike, tilting his head a little beyond and to the right of Buffy, indicating Faith, as the preacher moved toward Buffy.

“NO!” Buffy screamed, throwing her stake like a bullet directly at Spike’s heart as he moved to comply.

Spike knocked it aside as if it had been moving in slow-motion and smirked at her. “Have t’ do better than that, pet,” he taunted, stepping to the side to walk past her to reach Faith.

“Fine!” she hissed. Buffy flung herself at the two men with all her strength, turning her body sideways to hit Spike with her legs and Caleb with her torso. The two men were bowled down and all three of them tumbled into a tangled mass of writhing limbs.

Buffy felt the dark power she’d taken in of the pure demon roil and rise inside her, filling her with fury and savagery and strength beyond anything she’d ever felt before. She made no effort to contain it or restrain it, she felt it rise up from the dark shadows of her soul where she’d been holding it at bay and take over her mind, her body, her heart, her very soul with a hiss of carnal rage.

Buffy punched Caleb in the jaw with the force of incandescent fury just as he started to rise, knocking him back and slamming the back of his head into the hard, stone floor. In the next moment she kicked her boot at Spike’s face, knocking him back down, as well. She scrambled back to her feet, swift and lithe as a leopard, making it up before they could, and began kicking brazenly, furiously at whatever she could hit – Caleb or Spike, it didn’t matter. Faces, necks, torsos, groins, arms or legs, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered then but meting out her wrath on her foes, fueled by the dark obsidian power of the demon. She was blind with the force of the darkness roaring inside her, and she let it run free.

She threw a litany of curses at them, screaming and growling her wrath as they rolled back, trying to get away from her onslaught. Then she remembered the dagger in her hand and began slashing down at both of them – still blind with rage. Just as brutally as she’d been kicking, she stabbed and sliced into their flesh, sending blood spurting wildly in all directions, covering the walls, the floor, and her.

Then one of them, she wasn’t sure who, knocked her legs out from under her with a vicious kick and she fell, face first, onto the blood-soaked floor.  She still gripped the dagger as tightly as she could, despite the warm, slick blood running down the blade and coating her hand. She lashed out with it toward the body nearest her as she pushed herself back up, trying to regain her feet, but the floor was slick and her movement suffered for it.

Before she could make it back up, Caleb, still sprawled on the floor, captured the wrist of the hand wielding the dagger and jerked her forward. She landed atop him and the two combatants rolled and grappled on the hard, cold floor. They punched and kicked, elbowed and kneed, one on top, then the other, neither gaining a clear advantage. Buffy even bit him with her sharp fangs, which she regretted almost instantly. His blood was acrid; it left the taste of pure evil coating her tongue – rancid and bitter … and really salty.

The two supernatural warriors looked and sounded like two lions attacking each other, fighting to the death. Growls of fury and shrieks of agony filled the stone building as they pummeled each other, inflicting enough pain to fell an elephant, but still they battled, neither clearly winning or losing, neither giving up or giving in.

It was only when Spike kicked Buffy in the ribs with a bone-cracking jolt of strength, and sent her flying across the room, that the fight came to an abrupt and brutal end.

Buffy hit the stone wall near where Faith lay, the other Slayer still unconscious and unmoving. Buffy’s breath was forced out of her in a jolt of piercing, bone-deep pain, every cell in her body screaming in agony. She tumbled to the floor, gasping for air, fighting through the pain of more broken ribs, battered, bleeding, and bruised, but still alive, still conscious, and still furious.

She scrambled back to her feet, using the demonic power to ignore the pain that simply breathing was inflicting, let alone the agony of moving. She picked up the Dustinator® from where it lay next to Faith, and turned back to face Caleb and Spike. She was still bent over at the waist and gasping for breath but determined to stand her ground.  She put herself between the other Slayer and the two demons, for, clearly, neither of them were men, set not only on protecting Faith, but kicking demon ass.

“You are a feisty one,” the preacher proclaimed, all his wounds healing cleanly right before Buffy’s eyes, looking as if she hadn’t even touched him. “I'm gonna take such sweet pleasure in taming you, girly. Sweet, _delicious_ pleasure,” he purred.

Buffy’s eyes went wide, her heart lurching and catching in her chest, as she looked from the preacher to Spike, both of whom were slowly advancing on her now.  The vamp’s wounds also had healed or were well on the way – even the rips in his clothes were mending.

She, on the other hand, was bruised and battered, her clothes torn, or _more_ torn, and her head throbbed from being bounced off hard objects. Her ribs felt like knives stabbing into her lungs while someone played nick-nack-paddy-whack up and down her spine, making it that much harder for her to catch her breath. Her liver and kidneys had both been pummeled by Caleb’s fists, creating the sensation of having swallowed an electric eel, which was thrashing around inside her, electrocuting every inch of her entrails. And, if that wasn’t enough, she was pretty sure she’d broken her left hand while punching something hard – probably Spike’s thick skull.

“Well, that’s just not fair,” she groaned, her red eyes blazing with anger and more than a little dismay, but the gold specks still glittered with resolve.

“Let’s see how you heal this!” she exclaimed, undaunted – well, maybe a little daunted, but still pissed off – swinging the sharp axe end of the weapon at Caleb’s neck, set on decapitating him.

The preacher ducked deftly, the razor-sharp blade shaving off a bit of hair on its way past, but otherwise missing its mark. As it came around, unhindered by Caleb’s neck, it struck Spike in his upper-arm and the left side of his back, embedding itself in his ribcage.

“You bloody bitch!” he exclaimed, grabbing the handle of the weapon and jerking it free from Buffy’s grip, making the Slayer jerk forward and then stumble back a step.

Spike wrenched the blade from his flesh as Buffy watched, her red eyes staring, still unbelieving, as he healed again, as if he’d never been struck.

The angry vampire took the last two strides towards Faith’s prone and unmoving body, intent on finishing what had been started. Buffy moved to intercept him, but he jabbed the stake end of the weapon at her and she reflexively jumped back to avoid being skewered. Without missing a beat, Spike raised the Dustinator® and brought it down on Faith with enough force to drive the stake all the way through her chest and into the stone floor below. The weapon quivered, imbedded in the hard floor, the axe looking as if Spike had planted a macabre flag there, marking his territory.

Buffy screamed, wordless and anguished, diving toward Faith, ending up on her knees next to the Slayer. She laid her hands on Faith’s unmoving chest, muttering a prayer under her breath, hoping beyond hope to find a heartbeat there, a breath of life. But there was nothing. Tears of fury and heartbreak once again threatened to break free from Buffy’s burning eyes as she bent over Faith’s lifeless body.

Faith was gone. The Potentials were gone. She was all that was left to stand against the rising darkness.

_‘It is not enough.’_

* * *

**_References:_ **

The quote in the banner, "All our times have come," is from the song [Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult. Link](https://youtu.be/yen7UVKTWC0)

The comment about letting the DeSoto’s ‘horses run free’, of course, is a reference to the [Prince song, Little Red Corvette. Link.](https://youtu.be/v0KpfrJE4zw)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah!! How much more can Buffy take? How in the world can Spike be redeemed from this? That small flicker of light I’ve promised will start to shine in the next chapter! Don’t go away now! You’ve nearly made it!! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying (?) the story. (Or maybe it’s like a train wreck and you just can’t look away, that’s cool too.). I promise that the paramedics will be arriving soon to restart our hearts and level this roller coaster out so it can start bumping slowly back upwards again. Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	75. Sing Me a New One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy stands alone against Spike and Caleb. How is she going to get out of this?

* * *

 

“I do believe that leaves just you, little lady,” Caleb taunted, moving closer to where Buffy knelt over Faith.  “The last Slayer. The very last, the end, never to be resurrected again. Can I get a ‘ _hallelujah’_!? Praise be to God!”

Buffy stood up and faced the preacher, taking several fury-fueled steps toward him, her red eyes glowing, shimmering with unshed tears, but still resolute with pure furious anger glittering within.

“No friends, no weapons, no hope. What’s left, little girl?” Caleb mocked, smirking at her triumphantly.

“You evil-types really should get a new writer once in a while,” Buffy informed him coldly.

“Well, I am a sucker for the classics,” Caleb admitted, as he casually bent to pick up one of the Bringer’s dropped daggers from the cold, stone floor.

“That’s the problem with you big-bads, always going with the same old tune,” she told him, taking a cautious step back away from him as he straightened back up.

“As my dear, departed mama used t’ say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Caleb related, taking another step toward her. “’Course, I am the one that departed her, but that’s a happy story for another time.”

“You’re probably used to winning, aren’t you?” Buffy asked, her hands balled into fists at her sides, her whole body tense, ready to move, to duck, to strike, to fight … ready to run.

“Well, I reckon you could say that. Haven’t lost yet, have I, missy?” Caleb remarked taking yet another step closer to her.

“Hmmm … I guess not. But then, we aren’t done yet, are we?” she countered.

Caleb stopped moving, smiling amiably, holding the dagger down near his side. “Aren’t we? You look about as done as a dirty little whore can get. ‘Bout time to stick a fork in ya, I’d say. Though, now that I think on it, you could be right, at that, and I’m not one to withhold credit where it’s due. I do believe there is one more prophetic deed to be completed in the name of pure, ironic symmetry.

“Meeting your end at the hands of your dead lover. That would be worthy of a chapter in Genesis, right next to Cain and Abel, wouldn’t you agree?” he continued casually, looking over at Spike, who was still standing behind Buffy, near Faith’s body. “I do believe that is your cue, William.”

“’Bout bloody time,” Spike snarled, stepping up and wrapping an arm around Buffy’s shoulders, pulling her back against him and holding her prisoner with an iron grip.

Buffy smiled back at Caleb, not struggling against Spike at all. “You know, I’m pretty used to winning, too,” she informed him as Spike nuzzled her neck with his lips, finding the pounding vein beneath her heated skin with practiced ease.

“Well, it appears you’re in for a disappointment this time, sweet pea,” Caleb replied casually.

“Hmm, that’s funny, cos pretty sure you’re gonna be the disappointed one. See, I promised my last dance to someone else … someone who loves me,” she responded just as casually, as Spike continued to lick and kiss and nuzzle her neck, making love to her blood as it pounded riotously through her veins.

She felt him shift into his vampire form, but she didn’t flinch. Buffy knew this dance intimately. Spike was waiting for her to surrender, waiting to feel her give in … it’s so much sweeter when they surrendered. She had no intention of surrendering to anyone on this night.

Buffy began to hum, then sing softly, “[ _So don't forget who's taking you home, or in who's arms you're gonna be, so darling save the last dance for me_.](https://youtu.be/n-XQ26KePUQ)”

Caleb’s brows drew together in confusion, for perhaps the first time ever the smug surety slipping from his features. In the next moment he lunged forward with the dagger, plunging it toward her abdomen, intent on gutting her.

That small moment of confusion, that slight hesitation, was all that was needed for Spike to push Buffy aside. The dagger plunged into Spike’s stomach and the vampire roared with fury as he wrenched it free of Caleb’s grasp and pulled it out, his body healing almost immediately.

“Downstairs … cavern! Go!” Spike yelled at Buffy as he dove at Caleb, dagger in hand, golden eyes gleaming, fangs flashing with venomous rage.

Buffy watched a moment as the two super-powered demons grappled and wrestled against each other on the floor, but didn’t hesitate long. She ran toward the back of the building, from the direction that Caleb and Spike had emerged when she and Faith had first arrived, looking for the way to get downstairs. She found it in an instant – a trap door in the floor. She yanked it open and simply jumped down into the rocky cavern beneath the cask room, ignoring the ladder.

The sound of it hit her first, like a Siren’s song, or perhaps it was the subtle vibration against her skin, calling to her. Whatever it was, she knew it was hers, it belonged in her hands, almost as if it was a part of her.

She saw it next, buried in a stone in the center of the dimly-lit room. Even in the candlelight it glowed, as if it had an inner fire. It was made for dusting Turok-Han, clearly, with an axe on one end and a stake on the other, just like the one she’d had Xander make.  This one, unlike Xander’s, had a gleaming, silver blade with crimson edging along the back, shining and bright. The handle was square, and not as long as the one Xander had made for her, but with a wicked stake on the other end, just like the Dustinator®.

Buffy marveled at it for a moment as she moved nearer, the vision of the weapon she’d had Xander make for her superimposing itself over the one in front of her – almost as if they had been made from the same pattern. Xander’s was certainly less shiny, and a bit longer, and less elegant, but still … this could be the prettier, more stylish sister to his; the one with better fashion sense and a bit of a wild side – the glitter-wearing party girl.

Buffy reached out and grasped it, feeling a surge of energy vibrate through her with the touch. She lifted it easily from the stone, weighing it in her hand, feeling the balance of it, the perfection of it.

Then she heard Spike scream in pain in the room above, and the spell the weapon had cast over her was broken. She was moving in an instant, up through the trapdoor and into the cask room above. Spike and Caleb were standing now, though Spike was clearly not in as good a shape as Caleb, bent over at the waist, gripping his stomach as blood poured out, pooling on the floor beneath him.

Caleb was facing away from her, a blood-soaked dagger in his hand, and Buffy wasted no time in closing on him, new axe drawn back, ready to strike. The preacher turned around at the last moment, just as she swung. He ducked, as he’d done before, but Buffy had already anticipated that, and the shiny, new weapon sliced through his neck as if it were warm butter. The preacher’s head rolled off to smash against the wall as his body collapsed in a heap on the floor, blood spurting from his neck, covering everything in sight, including Buffy in steaming, thick gore.

“Fucking bastard!” she screamed at his corpse, bringing the axe down again and again until he was little more than a bloody jigsaw puzzle of body parts coated in gore and julienned entrails. The demon rejoiced inside her, writhing with pleasure, shouting with victory, blazing with glory. It swept over her like a wave of undulated evil as she continued to slash and chop the preacher into smaller and smaller bits, flinging blood and guts, eyeballs and entrails over the nearby walls and casks of wine, and over her.

“Buffy…” Spike groaned, dropping to his knees, still clutching his stomach, blood seeping past his fingers at an alarming rate.

“Spike!” she cried, corralling the surging demonic power inside herself, stuffing it back down, relinquishing her angry fit of vengeance against the preacher, and moving to her husband’s side. “You were healing before! Why aren’t you healing?”

“Think my membership in The First Evil’s Club o’ Fucking Bastards got revoked,” he gasped out as she got a shoulder under his arm and helped him up.

“What happened? You forgot to pay your dues?” she asked rhetorically as she helped him up the stairs to the front door.

“Thinks I been hanging out with the wrong crowd, I reckon. You and yer bloody friends – bad influences the lot of you. Against the bylaws, that is,” Spike mocked, wincing with each step up the steep stairs.

Buffy snorted and gave him a small smile, appreciating his efforts at levity.

“I have to get Faith,” she told him at the top of the stairs before leaning him up against the wall. “Can you stand on your own a minute?”

“Think so,” Spike answered her, dropping his gaze to the floor shamefully. “Should’a stopped me before I…”

“Don’t go there. Not now, Spike,” Buffy reprimanded him gently, offering him the shiny new weapon. “Plenty of time for tears and recriminations later.”

“But … Dawn?” he whispered, closing his eyes, holding back the tears and pain that had begun welling up in is soul since she’d released him from The First’s control. During the fight with Caleb he hadn’t had time to examine all he’d done while under the influence of evil, but now it had all begun screaming to be heard.

Buffy clenched her jaw, blinking her own emotions back. “I don’t know,” she replied softly, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. “But I can’t … Spike, please, let’s just get through the next five minutes, then, maybe … five more minutes.”

Spike sniffed and nodded, pulling himself together, and reached for the axe a little warily, touching just one bloody finger to the silver shaft gingerly.

“I don’t think it bites,” Buffy assured him, pressing it into his hand.

“Couldn’t prove it by me, determined as they were to get that bit o’ shiny metal and pointy wood out of the stone,” he informed her, wrapping one hand around it, still a little wary. “Think it was bloody Excalibur.”

“Spike, I know … I know what you did, what you let The First do to you … was …” Buffy began, stammering, words failing her, as her emotions started to slip out of their bindings.

Despite telling him to not go there, she felt like she had to say something. He’d let The First in – into his soul – and it had been her idea. To use him as a ticking timebomb on the inside of Evil, Inc.’s operation. The First had said it wasn’t finished with Spike, it had shown its hand. She knew it would come back for him and she’d suggested using that knowledge to their advantage. Well, she may have done more than suggest … she may have almost forced him to agree to do it.

Spike’s sorceress friend in Istanbul, Lilith, knew how The First had planted the trigger in Spike when Spike had been in Africa renewing his soul. She’d given them the knowledge and magics to do something similar and turn that knowledge into power. The possibly-biblical witch had worked with Willow to implant a spell which was triggered when The First’s essence entered Spike. It walled off Spike’s soul, his humanity, and Spike’s memory of their plan, with a magical, undetectable (they’d hoped) barrier. It left only the darkest fringes of Spike’s demonic spirit for The First to … well, to rape and pillage, to use for its own purposes. And then the trigger had been planted, the song, like explosives around the base of the wall. When he heard it from human lips, it would drop the walls and let Spike’s soul out, give him his free will back by expelling The First, and restore his full memory again – including all he’d seen and done while under The First’s influence. Buffy had been a little concerned that she didn’t qualify as fully ‘human’ any longer, but apparently the spell wasn’t too strict with its definition of ‘human’.

Spike shook his head. “Tears and recriminations later, yeah?” he whispered, touching a blood-stained finger to her cheek. “Looks like you had a bit done to you too, luv,” he remarked, letting his eyes roam over her hair, her leopard-spotted brow and cheekbones, her fangs, and her glowing eyes.

“I chose it,” she whispered.

“And I chose this,” Spike assured her.

Buffy shook her head, not so sure she’d given him much of a choice, blinking back her emotions. “I love you,” she whispered, her demonic eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

“I love you, too, Buffy,” Spike replied softly before touching a chaste, gentle kiss to her bruised and swollen lips.

Buffy swallowed back her tears, and nodded again. “I just can’t … right now. I can’t open it all up right now. I just need to get through this, then we’ll talk. Is that okay?” she asked him.

Spike nodded, tears shimmering in his blue eyes. “Are we okay, though? Couldn’t bear it if …”

Buffy gave him a sad, watery smile and nodded her head earnestly. “We’re okay, no matter what, we’re okay,” she assured him, touching her palm against his cheek comfortingly, then turned and headed back down the stairs to get Faith.

She took a wide path around the preacher parts littering the floor, trying to keep from stepping in the lake of blood she’d left there. She took a moment to make sure none of the parts were healing in any way, but saw no sign of life from the pieces of blood-soaked preacher.  She got to Faith and gritted her teeth, steeling herself before wrenching the Dustinator® out of the stone floor and free of Faith’s body with a sickening squelching sound.

“Yo, B!” a voice called from behind her. “You’re just gonna forgive him for killin’ me? Dude! I thought we were, ya know, Slayers in arms or whatever! You’re clearly the bad Slayer now! He fucking killed me, man! How can you—?”

“Fuck off! You’re not her!” Buffy called over her shoulder, not even turning around.

Buffy leaned the weapon up against the wall as she bent down and picked up Faith’s limp and lifeless body, draping the other Slayer over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. She grabbed the ugly twin of her shiny new weapon and turned around. Her mother was standing there, dressed all in white, looking extremely concerned.

“Buffy, dear, I know—”

“You don’t know shit! Get out of my face!” the Slayer demanded before walking right through the apparition and heading back up the stairs. Every cell in Buffy’s body was screaming at her to just stop. Stop moving. Stop feeling. Stop breathing, even. It hurt. Every move hurt. Every breath hurt. Every thought hurt. But there was still more to be done. There was no time for falling for The First’s tricks or for pain now, either.  

As they stepped outside into the cool night air, Warren appeared before them, beaten and broken and carved up with Spike’s bloody artistry. “You—” was all he got out before Spike growled, “Bugger off!” and stepped through him.

“The car’s not far away, over behind those trees,” Buffy told Spike, gesturing with her chin, completely ignoring Warren, who had kept talking. “Can you make it, or should I get it and come back?”

“I can make it,” Spike assured her as he began limping his way in the direction she’d indicated, dodging around the lifeless bodies of bringers, holding his stomach with one hand and the shiny weapon in the other.

“It’s not over, my sweet Spike,” Dru warned, dancing and twirling lightly on the damp grass in front of them. “I see the Slayer in pretty red messes spread all over the shiny blades… eyeballs and entrails hung up like streamers at my party.”

“If ya knew anything, you’d know Dru never could see a bloody thing ‘bout Slayers! Black holes t’ her, they were! Daft bugger!” Spike growled, making Dru pout and whimper before shimmering away into the pre-dawn mist.

“Oh, you have got to be bloody kidding me, Slayer,” Spike groaned when they emerged from the trees and he saw his car. “You couldn’t have used Xander’s hillbilly-mobile? Had t’ bring _mine_ t’ the bleedin’ dance?

“Any idea how hard it is to get blood outta leather?” he groused, opening the door with a squeak of metal hinges so Buffy could lay Faith’s body in the backseat.

“Really? You’re gutted, I’m beaten to shreds, Faith’s dead, and you’re worried about your car’s upholstery!?” Buffy chastised, taking the weapon from him and laying it, along with hers, on the back floorboard.

“Betty’s more than just a car. She’s a classic! Been with me for ages, she has,” he defended.

“ _Betty_?’” Buffy repeated incredulously. “You named your car?”

Spike sniffed, raising his chin in defiance as he began to move around to the driver’s side. “Nothing wrong with that. Lots ‘a people do.”

Buffy lifted her eyes skyward and shook her head in exasperation. She reached out for the door handle, getting ready to open the driver’s door, but then stopped, watching him as leaned heavily on Betty’s hood, moving slowly around the car.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing now?” Buffy asked him.

“My car. I’m drivin’,” he informed her.

“You can barely walk and you’re still bleeding – you could pass out at any moment. I’m driving,” she countered, hurrying around to block his path. “I mean it and I don’t have time to argue,” she threatened, reaching a hand out to prod his abdomen.

Spike pulled back before she could even touch him and glowered at her, but her glowing red eyes won the glowering contest quickly, and he hobbled back over to the passenger side.

Buffy rolled her eyes and hurried to the driver’s side, opening the door with more squealing of hinges, and slid in behind the wheel. Buffy bent down, reaching for the wires to try and start it like she’d seen Faith do.

“What are ya doing now?” he asked as he lowered himself gingerly into the passenger seat. Then he realized exactly what she was doing. “You hotwired Black Betty?! Bloody hell, woman! What else have you done to her? Better not’ve changed any of my radio stations!”

Buffy rolled her eyes again, her mouth set in a hard line. “I didn’t have the …” she began to defend.

Spike reached up to the sun visor over the driver’s seat and flipped it down, dropping a set of silver keys into Buffy’s lap with a soft jingle of metal.

“…key,” she finished lamely.

Spike rolled his eyes and pulled his door closed a little harder than necessary. “If you put one scratch on this car, I’ll bite you,” he warned sternly as she started it.

“It’s already scratched and dented,” she argued, putting it in gear with the strange little push-buttons on the dashboard and setting off, back up the bumpy, dirt track.

“Is not,” he countered, sniffing derisively. “Those are battle scars, gives ‘er character.”

“Oh, my God,” Buffy moaned, pulling onto the highway and picking up speed. “Do I need to get you two a room?”

“You don’t have to be shirty about it,” he informed her as he checked the preset buttons on the radio to make sure they hadn’t been mucked around with.

“I’m not shirty. And what is shirty? That’s not even a word. You’re just making stuff up now,” Buffy insisted as she sped down the highway toward town. “And who’s Betty, anyway?”

“Black Betty,” Spike repeated, raising his brows at her waiting for her to get it, but she just shrugged.

“Song. Mighta heard it by Ram Jam … 1977?” he continued.

“Before my time,” she retorted. “Maybe if you hum a few bars?”

Spike rolled his eyes and began to drum out a beat on the dashboard with one hand, then sang,

“[Whoa, Black Betty, bam-ba-lam,](https://youtu.be/I_2D8Eo15wE)

“She really gets me high, bam-ba-lam,

“You know that's no lie, bam-ba-lam,

“She's so rock steady, bam-ba-lam,

“And she's always ready, bam-ba-lam,

“Whoa, Black Betty, bam-ba-lam.”

 

He looked at her, brows raised again, his lips pursed, waiting.

“Catchy,” she admitted, remembering the song now that she’d heard it. “I think I would’ve gone with … KITT.”

“ _KITT_?” Spike repeated incredulously, his voice rising several octaves. “KITT’s a bloody poofter next t’ Betty. KITT, my achin’ arsehole.”

“Yeah, but David Hasselhoff!” Buffy pointed out, wagging her spotted brows at Spike, as she sped into the deserted town, not bothering to slow down. There were no police to give her tickets, there were no other cars to get in her way, she didn’t even slow down for the red lights in her path. It was a ghost town, and they were the only ghosts.

Spike and Buffy continued their meaningless banter, keeping the emotions boiling inside both of them bottled up tight, firmly ignoring the bloody, bruised, and beaten elephant in the room. They couldn’t let go yet, couldn’t break down, couldn’t cry or laugh or scream or fall apart or come together. They weren’t done yet – the mission was still the priority – they had to just hold on a little while longer.

“ _Pffft_ ,” Spike dismissed her. “Ponce,” he contended as he finished checking the preset buttons on the radio.

“Who’s been listenin’ to country in here?” Spike growled. “Enough t’ make ya puke, that is.

“Sorry, baby,” he whispered to the car, patting a hand lovingly on the dashboard. “I’ll make it up to ya.”

Buffy groaned. “This is like watching a vampire version of Rain Man,” she observed as she slowed down, and began to turn into the driveway of Angel’s mansion.

Before Spike could object to her character assassination, Caleb appeared in the headlight beams, standing right in front of the open garage, directly in Buffy’s path. Buffy’s eyes went wide. How could he have healed from what she’d done? How is this possible!? This is so fucking unfair!

She floored it, meaning to run him down, smash him into so many pieces that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t even _find_ enough of him to put him back together again.

“Not him!” Spike yelled as the vision of his beloved Betty being smashed into the wall of the garage flashed in his mind.

Buffy let off the gas and quickly hit the brake, skidding through Caleb and coming to a stop with three inches to spare between the DeSoto’s bumper and the back wall of the garage. Spike let out a relieved sigh and reached over to lay a bloody hand over Buffy’s where she gripped the wheel so hard her knuckles had turned white. Her hand was shaking, with fear or fury, or some combination of both, he didn’t know.

“It’s okay, pet,” he assured her, squeezing her hand comfortingly. “Preacher’s dead.”

Buffy nodded and took a deep breath, which sent slivers of pain bursting into her body from her bruised ribs. She let it out quickly and put the car in ‘Park’ before cutting the motor.  She took another shallower breath and got out of the car, the hinges moving more smoothly now with only a small squeak.

She walked to the back and looked at the apparition who stood just outside the garage in the driveway. “You’re not him,” she told First-Caleb, standing with her hands on her hips, defiant.

“No, you killed him, right and proper. Terrible loss. This man was my good right arm. And ya took m’ left arm too. Shame that. I enjoyed his dark wit and irreverent sarcasm,” First-Caleb told her, tilting his head toward Spike.

“‘Course, it don’t pain me too much. Don’t need any arms. I’ve got an army,” First-Caleb informed her cockily.

“An army of vampires. How ever will I fight?” Buffy shot back sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “Oh! Wait! Maybe with that shiny new toy I got from you. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Every day our numbers swell and yours dwindle. You’ve stopped _nothing_. You understand _nothing_ , little girl,” First-Caleb informed her angrily. “Just you and a vampire, all that’s left of the mighty Slayer line … and you think you’ll stop the great darkness?”

“I’ll stop it. You haven’t been following along the last seven years. It’s what I do,” she informed him fervently. “You, on the other hand do … _nothing_. You really should consider a new name, because that’s about all you’ve got going for you. I mean, since you’re incorporeal and basically powerless. How about the Taunter? Strikes fear in the hearts of … _no one_ ,” she mocked.

“I will overrun this Earth. And when my army outnumbers the humans, the scales will tip, and I will be made flesh,” he announced, grandiosely.

“Blah, blah, blah. Sing me a new one, I’ve heard this tune before from, like, every evil thing _ever_.

“You’re all like: ‘ _I'm so rotten they don't even have a name for it. I'm bad. Baddy, bad, bad, bad. Does it make you horny? Or terrified. Whatever_ ,” Buffy mocked, shrugging at the end.

“I’m not afraid of you,” the Slayer proclaimed confidently as she reached up to pull the garage door closed.

First-Caleb began to move into the garage to continue their repartee but was stopped abruptly at the threshold. He bounced back a bit, looking confused.

Buffy smiled coldly. “Oh, did I forget to mention? Must have a soul to enjoy this attraction,” she smirked, pulling the garage door closed with a bang.

Spike was out of the car and had the two axes in hand when she got back to the passenger side of the car. She pulled Faith out and draped the other Slayer over her shoulder gently before heading into the kitchen. Buffy didn’t pause until she’d reached the big room, stopping in front of the fireplace and fishing out her communications amulet from beneath her shirt.

Buffy pulled it off over her head and slid it into a small hole in the stone of the fireplace mantle. There was a small ‘click’, as if a key had turned in a lock, and then a portal opened, shimmering and bright, in front of her. Spike was right on her heels as she stepped through the light and walked right back into the room she’d just left. Only, not.

It looked like Angel’s mansion, sans the inch of dust, and with more furniture, but it wasn’t. In fact, it wasn’t even in the same plane of existence she’d just left, but rather in a pocket dimension simply made to look familiar and comfortable.

“Willow! Tara!” she cried, laying Faith down on a hospital gurney that was waiting for them, right in front of the fireplace she’d just stepped through.

In a moment, Buffy was surrounded by people, Willow and Tara were the first there, hastily lighting the numerous pillar candles that encircled the narrow gurney where Faith lay.

“How long?” Willow asked, looking worried.

Buffy looked at her watch, wiping blood off the face of it so she could see. “Fifty-two minutes,” she told the red-witch.

“Cutting it a little close, dontcha think?” Willow chastised as she joined hands with the others in the group that had formed: Xander, Anya, Dawn, and Giles, as well as Buffy and Tara.

“I was a little distracted getting the shit beat out of me and chopping up a preacher,” Buffy defended.

“You did the stasis spell?” Willow asked.

Buffy nodded, looking at Faith’s lifeless body worriedly. “Right after Spike … right after she was … ummm … stabbed.”

“Let’s hope you did it right,” the witch muttered.

Buffy frowned, looking decidedly insulted, but didn’t say anything as Tara began the incantation. The white witch began by removing the spell Buffy had done when she’d dropped to her knees over the other Slayer, when she’d appeared to be praying and grieving. It had basically frozen Faith, putting her into a state of suspended animation. Tara then moved on to use the same spell she’d used to heal Buffy after she’d been shot, now attempting to heal the mortal wound in Faith’s chest.

“Aceso, Goddess hear my plea, time begin, inertia end, magic mend while the candle burns, injury heal, and health return, harm to none, my will be done. So mote it be!” Tara chanted.

The only thing that happened was the stasis that Faith’s body had been in ended, and blood began to pour out of the wound in her chest.

“Shit!” Buffy snarled, releasing Tara’s hand and pressing down on the wound to try and staunch the bleeding. “DO IT AGAIN!” she ordered the witch.

Tara laid her hand over Buffy’s on Faith’s chest and began again even more fervently, leaving off the first part, since Faith’s inertia had clearly ended.

Still nothing seemed to happen.

“Spike!” Buffy yelled, turning her head to look for him. “Shiny axe!” she demanded, reaching her free hand out toward him.

Spike tossed the new axe to her, making everyone standing around Faith exclaim in surprise and confusion, and take a cautious step back. Buffy placed the weapon longways atop Faith’s body, the blade resting over the other Slayer’s heart. She then took Tara’s hand in hers and pressed the witch’s palm into the handle, wrapping her own hand around Tara’s in a painful grip.

“Again!” Buffy demanded as blood continued to pour from Faith’s wound.

“Aceso!! Goddess hear my plea!! Magic mend while the candle burns, injury heal, and health return! Harm to none, my will be done! So mote it be!” Tara fairly screamed the spell, casting it forcefully into the realm of magic, demanding to be heard.

Buffy felt a jolt of magic run through her, like a powerful shock of electric current, starting at the weapon and shooting out through her other hand. Everyone who had joined hands in the circle was blown backwards by it and knocked on their asses, sliding away from Faith and the powerful magic.

Faith began to cough and gasp for air, her body jerking back to life beneath the surge of mystical forces that had been conjured. Buffy scrambled up and hurried back to her fellow Slayer, removed the scythe, and turned Faith onto her side, allowing the blood that was blocking her airway to drain out. The reincarnated Slayer choked and coughed and gagged, trying to clear her lungs and airway of the blood, but at least she was alive, and no longer bleeding.

“Fuckkkk,” Faith moaned after finally getting her breath back. She rolled gingerly onto her back and brought a hand up to her eyes and aching head.

“Damn, B, you didn’t tell me about the headrush. Fuck … that hurts,” she moaned, keeping her eyes clamped closed and rubbing her forehead gently.

Buffy blew out a relieved breath, letting her eyes fall closed and sending a grateful prayer up into the ether to that Aceso goddess that Tara had invoked, whoever she may be.

“Sorry, it must’ve slipped my mind,” she told Faith after a moment, laying the shiny weapon back atop her body in hopes that it might help. “Put on your big-girl panties and deal with it.”

“Whoa, harsh,” Faith complained, still trying to massage the pain out of her brain, with no success. “You’re definitely the bad Slayer now.”

Buffy started to laugh, but it came out as a sob, and she dropped down to her knees on the hard floor, burying her face in her hands as all her emotions broke free of their gilded cages in an overwhelming rush.

“It’s okay, Buffy,” Dawn assured her, kneeling next to her sister and pulling her into a tight hug. “Everything’s okay.”

“Did … everyone make it … out?” Buffy stammered against Dawn’s shoulder.

“Yeah, everyone got out. A couple of bumps and bruises, but … it’s fine. Everyone’s fine,” Dawn assured her.

“I wasn’t sure … God, Dawnie. I was so afraid you hadn’t …” Buffy cried, hugging her sister even more tightly.

Giles knelt next to the two girls and touched a comforting hand on Buffy’s back. “It all worked as you’d planned, though I’m not certain you had envisioned the house being destroyed,” he confessed.

Buffy shook her head against her sister’s shoulder. “Not exactly,” she admitted. “Did you save any of my clothes?”

Dawn laughed through her tears. “No, but I hear the Gap is having a big sale … all you want for free until the world ends.”

“You took the piss outta me over the car and you’re worried about your bloody clothes?” Spike chastised as he limped up to them. “Also … gutted and bleedin’ here. Maybe a little … help,” he stammered, suddenly dropping down onto his ass on the hard floor as his legs gave out.

“Oh, God! Spike!” Dawn exclaimed, pulling free of her sister and jumping up to grab a nearby first-aid kit.

Buffy turned, getting ready to go to Spike as well, but Giles drew her attention away. “What about you, Buffy?” her ex-Watcher asked, still crouching next to her. “Are you injured, also?”

Buffy snorted, wiping at her eyes. “Every cell in my body is injured,” she told him, as she watched Anya come over to help Dawn with Spike’s wounds. “But I’ll live.

“So, who was it?” she asked, looking away from her husband, who seemed to be in good hands, and up to meet Giles’ eyes. “Who got called when Faith died? Was it someone here?”

“Yes. Amanda,” Giles told her, standing up slowly from his crouch and offering her a hand up.

Buffy took his hand and got back to her feet, nodding solemnly. “I figured her or Kennedy,” she admitted.

“Amanda is a good girl, smart and capable,” Giles assured her. “She can handle it.”

“How many more girls have come in here since I kicked you out?” Buffy asked, moving nearer to where Dawn and Anya were working on patching Spike up. 

“There are sixty-two all together now. Well, I guess Amanda doesn’t count as a Potential any longer, so sixty-one.

“Spike’s demonic underground ‘railroad’ has been working quite brilliantly. Bringing the girls in from quite far out of town before the Bringers even know they are near. It works particularly well here, since Angel had underground sewer access built into the basement. I must say I’m …”

“Impressed?” Buffy suggested when Giles hesitated.

Giles removed his glasses and said, “Surprised.”

“Spike has a way of doing that … surprising you,” she replied with a small, but proud, smile on behalf of her husband.

“Indeed,” Giles admitted, putting his glasses back on. “And how many did he kill while under The First’s influence?” he questioned coldly.

Buffy locked a hard gaze on Giles. “Whatever it was, its less than it might’ve been. We’re at war, Giles. It was a calculated risk. There will be casualties. It’s just a fact of life.”

Giles looked suitably rebuked, lowering his gaze and nodding. “Of course, you’re correct. It just all seems so … _causal_.”

“I know,” Buffy admitted, sighing regretfully. “But without Spike getting his demon friends to smuggle the girls in, I doubt we’d have saved half of them.”

Giles nodded. “I’m sure you are correct,” he acquiesced.

“The First thinks they’re all dead. He … _it_ thinks it’s just me and Spike fighting it,” she confided. “It’s not even looking for them now. It thinks I’m the last one. We really have the advantage now – we’ve saved all these girls.”

“Apparently you were quite convincing then. Perhaps you should consider acting as a profession,” Giles suggested.

Buffy snorted, disagreeing, and shook her head. “It wasn’t acting. I wasn’t sure they had all gotten out, I wasn’t sure if you and Willow had gotten everything set up in time, not to mention he blew up _my fucking house_. I also wasn’t sure if D’Hoffryn or Lilith would screw us.  I really wasn’t sure until …” Buffy looked around at her friends, all working, engaged in helping Faith or Spike, then looked back at Giles. “I wasn’t sure until pretty-much now.”

“I, too, was concerned with their veracity. I was not entirely certain that the wards Lilith provided to protect the mansion would work to conceal the pocket dimensions Anya had D’Hoffryn set up in here,” Giles admitted. “But it appears the plan has worked splendidly.”

“It worked. It didn’t all go exactly like I thought, but it worked,” Buffy declared gratefully. “And, I got a shiny new … thingy, also thanks to Spike. It slices and dices preachers, and I’m thinking it turns uber-vamps into dust bunnies.”

“It seems to have some mystical power, as well,” Giles observed, looking at the palm of his hand, which still stung from where he’d been shocked by the magic forces Tara had invoked.

“It has beaucoup power,” Buffy told him. “Slayer power. I can feel it. It … hums … it, like … vibrates in my hands. I can actually hear it singing.”

Giles brows went up. “What, pray tell, does it sing?”

“’[We Are the Champions](https://youtu.be/04854XqcfCY)’,” Buffy replied, straight-faced.

Giles nodded approvingly. “Clearly, anything that sings seventies rock anthems must be quite powerful.”

“Clearly,” Buffy agreed. “Maybe you could do a little research on it … assuming we have any research materials left?”

“We have some resources, yes,” Giles assured her. “May I … examine it?”

“If you can pry it out of Faith’s hands, have at it,” she told him before turning her attention to Spike, who was now sitting on another hospital gurney.  What had her friends done? Raided the hospital?

“How is it?” she asked him, laying a hand over the bandages that Dawn and Anya had wrapped all around his whole torso, not limiting their attention to his skewered stomach.

“I’ll do. Nibblet gave me a little pick-me-up,” Spike told her, meeting her eyes with a meaningful gaze, which Buffy understood – Dawn had given him some of her blood. “Should be right as rain soon. What about you? Are you badly damaged? Maybe have Glinda fix ya up, eh?”

Buffy rubbed at her lower back where Caleb had pummeled her kidneys and then at her bruised, probably cracked, ribs, then looked over at the witches. Tara had clearly taken a psychic and physical hit from healing Faith, she was still sitting down on the floor, leaning against the wall. Willow was speaking to her quietly and trying to get her to drink something.

“I’ll make it,” she assured him, turning to look back at Spike. “I just really need to sleep for about ten … million years.”

Spike smiled at her indulgently. “Then let’s go sleep, pet,” he suggested, standing up gingerly. “Dawnie said they’ve got a room for us upstairs and to the right.”

Buffy nodded and tucked her shoulder under his, letting him lean on her, as they started up the stairs to the second floor of the mansion. The first door they saw had a sign on it that proclaimed, ‘Potential’s Dorm’. Buffy furrowed her brow, wondering how all those Potentials could fit in one room. She opened it and found that it opened onto a long hallway with a multitude of doors on each side. She drew back, confused … it was bigger than the whole mansion. How is that possible?

“Reckon it’s like the TARDIS, pet … bigger on the inside,” Spike suggested.

Buffy shrugged in agreement, impressed with what D’Hoffryn had done here with the pocket dimensions. She closed the door and they continued down the hall. They passed a door labeled, ‘Giles’ and one for ‘Dawn’, and one for ‘Mr. and Mrs. Harris’. At the end of the hall was one with, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Summers’ on it.

Buffy smiled and looked up at him. “Well, this must be our stop, Mr. Summers.”

“Appears so, Mrs. Summers,” he agreed, smiling softly back at her. “Shall we?” he invited, reaching out and opening the door.

Buffy gasped when the door swung open onto her foyer … in her house – her _destroyed_ house. The whole house seemed to be here. It looked exactly the same as when she’d left it … was that only two days ago? It seemed like a lifetime.

“How?” she muttered, stepping inside.

Spike shook his head, looking around, equally awed. “Magic.”

Suddenly tears filled Buffy’s eyes as she looked around, seeing memories. Memories of her mom, of Dawn, of her friends in this house. Of Christmases and Thanksgivings, of birthdays and death days. Memories of Spike, and even Angel and Riley. All the memories that made her who she was today flooded through her mind, through her soul, overwhelming her with a horrible, overpowering sense of loss that cut straight through her heart.

“We’ll make a new home, Buffy,” Spike assured her, drawing her into a tight hug, despite his injuries. “I know it won’t be the same, but we can make new memories, yeah? Important thing is ya still have all your friends, still have Dawnie … you still have me. And I love you.”

Buffy nodded against his bare shoulder, her tears falling in earnest now that they’d started. She’d been holding them back forever it seemed, she just couldn’t hold them in any longer.

“I know, you’re right … it’s just … hard. I just need to cry a while,” she told him through her tears.

“Cry all ya need, luv. I got ya,” he assured her as he guided her over to the couch and sat down, pulling her down with him.

A sob wracked Buffy’s body as she leaned into him, tucking her feet up onto the soft, familiar cushions. His arms around her were a balm to her soul, which had been feeling raw and bleak. She’d be strong again tomorrow, but she just needed to be held while she cried now.

“Thank you,” she mumbled through her tears.

“For what?” Spike asked, rubbing a hand gently up and down her back.

Buffy shook her head. For so many things. For everything he’d done, everything he’d endured; everything he’d sacrificed – for her, for the mission. For sacrificing parts of his hard-earned soul for her, for the world. For making her feel safe and loved, for just letting her be a girl for a little while instead of the Slayer, for holding her, for loving her, for not giving up on her, for his support and wisdom and advice. For everything he’d shown her and taught her about herself, for sharing his secrets with her, and letting her share hers with him. For trusting her, for keeping his promises. For defending her when she was right and calling her out when she was wrong. For being her friend, her lover, her partner. For believing in her.

Her chin quivered with emotion, and more tears fell from her eyes, soaking into the gauze wrapped around his torso.

“For everything,” she whispered at last. “Thank you for everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait! What?! Spike turning evil had been part of the plan? A calculated risk? That plan that they’d made so long ago? The plan that they made sure no one knew about? The plan where they asked for help from D’Hoffryn and Angel and Lilith? And Giles is … forgiven? Where’s Robin? What the hell was the plan? We’ll find out more about the plan over the next few chapters (all will be revealed), but first, Spike and Buffy have some healing to do, physically and emotionally.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	76. Tears and Recriminations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike heal, forgive, and reconnect.

* * *

 

Buffy had cried herself to sleep in Spike’s arms where they sat on the couch in the living room of her magically-manifested house.

When she woke, Buffy wasn’t in the same position as when she’d fallen asleep in Spike’s embrace, and neither was he. She was lying out along the length of the couch on her side, her back pressed into the soft cushions of the back of the sofa. Spike was on his side also, facing her, his body pressed gently along the length of hers, his top arm wrapped around her, his strong hand holding her head tucked beneath his chin protectively.

She woke slowly, still groggy, feeling a bit hungover from the deluge of emotions and strain she’d been under the last days. Her body ached. She thought she could feel the outline of Caleb’s knuckles where they had slammed into her flesh. She took a deep, exploratory breath and was relieved to find that it wasn’t as painful as it might’ve been. She didn’t have that instant-healing thing that Caleb had demonstrated, but the extra power she’d taken in from the shadow men was healing her faster than normal.

The long, hard cry had helped a little too, releasing some of the pent-up heartache and stress. She was still worried though. Worried about Spike and what being under The First’s control had cost him. Worried about The First finding a way through the magical wards on Angel’s mansion and realizing that all the Potentials were still alive, that Faith was alive, and that there was now a third Slayer: Amanda.

She took another deep breath and let it out slowly. She felt safe and loved here in Spike’s embrace and wished she could just stay here for several years, or maybe several decades, but that wasn’t possible. The battle was far from won. There was still a Hellmouth full of uber-vamps waiting for The First to set them free. She couldn’t let off the gas now; they had to go on the offensive and soon. She knew they could not give The First time to find more henchmen like Caleb, to replenish his Bringers, or let more Turok-Han out into the world.

But she also knew she had to rest and heal more – and not just physically – or she’d be no good to anyone, and she had to make sure Spike was okay. She needed him for this, and she needed him whole and strong. She’d known that since before she even knew what it was they would be fighting, and that had not changed. He was a key to their victory, she felt it in her bones, all the way to the marrow. She didn’t know how or why, but she just knew.

Buffy blinked her eyes open but could see little more than Spike’s blood-splattered neck and a bit of his gauze-wrapped torso. It looked like the sun was up, there was plenty of light, but she wasn’t sure if that was real or magical light. She had no idea how long they’d slept, but, since no one had come to wake them up, she assumed the world outside was still there and the end was not too nigh.

Spike must’ve sensed the change in her, because he touched a soft kiss against her forehead before pulling back a bit so he could see her face. He released the hold he had on her head and traced his fingers lightly over her leopard-spotted brows and cheek bones, following the line of his fingers with his eyes.  Then his finger slid down to her lips and touched one of her small, but razor-sharp fangs.

“What happened, luv?” he asked softly, raising his concerned, blue eyes up to meet her cat-like red ones.

“Got offered more strength, more power, to fight The First. I took it,” she told him softly.

“More demon than Slayer now,” he observed gently as he laid his palm against her cheek comfortingly.

“More Slayer than human, you mean.” Buffy closed her eyes, fighting back the tears welling behind her lids. “It’s … hard, Spike. It’s so dark. I can feel it trying to take over – and it’s strong.”

She opened her shimmering eyes then and met his gaze. “You’re what keeps it from snuffing out the light completely. Your love. Your belief in me. Knowing how disappointed you’d be in me if I let it. It keeps that flicker burning, keeps me from giving in.”

Spike wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against him again, weaving his fingers in her raven black hair. “I could never be disappointed in you, Buffy. I love you, no matter what.”

Buffy sniffed, fighting back her tears, not wanting to start another deluge of them, as she wrapped her free arm around his back, holding on tightly.

“I love you too, Spike,” she breathed, forcing the lump in her throat back down. “I’m sorry for making you …”

“Didn’t make me, luv,” Spike argued, cutting her off as he pulled back to look at her again. “I chose.”

“Because the manipulative bitch of a Slayer knew all the right buttons to push,” Buffy reminded him.

Spike gave her a sad smile. “You think I’m a bloody puppet? You may know my strings, but I know when they’re being deliberately yanked, don’t I? You didn’t force me into anything. I knew what I was doin’ better than anyone. I chose this. It’s what needed to be done; I did it.”

Buffy nodded slightly, still not completely convinced. “Are you okay?”

Spike sighed and closed his eyes. “Killed three girls, Buffy … not countin’ Faith.”

“Faith doesn’t count,” Buffy reminded him, gently. “She’s not dead.”

Spike opened his eyes and met hers. “Three innocent girls, Buffy. They didn’t even have stakes … didn’t have a single bloody weapon. Just … _girls_. Bloody clueless, they were … just innocent girls.”

“I know, Spike,” Buffy whispered, laying her palm against his cheek comfortingly. “We knew that might happen going in. I know that doesn’t make it any easier.”

Spike shook his head and clamped his eyes closed as tears shimmered to the surface. “I’m sorry. So bloody sorry, Buffy. I thought … I thought maybe I’d be able t’ fight it, but I just couldn’t. It took over so completely. Fucking bastard …”

“Spike, baby, when you let The First in the spell Willow and Lilith planted in you walled off your soul and your humanity completely. The First tapped right into the pure demon. There was no way for you to fight it.  And if you had it wouldn’t have worked … The First would’ve known if you were holding back.

“I know how much your soul hurts now, baby, but we always knew we’d never be able to save them all,” Buffy offered.

“Not savin’ them and killing them myself are two different things, luv,” Spike pointed out grimly.

“You didn’t kill them. The First did,” Buffy argued.

Spike shook his head, blinking hard to try and keep his tears back. “Didn’t feel that way. Buffy … I … _enjoyed it_. Got me so bloody hard sinking my fangs into them, feeling their life drain out, feeling their hot, sweet blood flow into me.

“Buffy … it was _me_ … it was all me, and I loved it,” he insisted, his shimmering eyes full of guilt and shame. “I’m so afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of losing myself … of losing you … after what I did,” Spike admitted. “Afraid you’ll see who I really am.”

“Oh, baby,” Buffy breathed, pulling him against her tightly. “I promise you haven’t lost me – I’m here for you, Spike. I know exactly who you are, and I’ll never let you forget it. You’re brave and strong and loyal. You willingly sacrificed yourself for the mission … for me. I know the truth of you and you aren’t what The First made you do.”

“I’m sorry, Buffy. I’m so sorry,” Spike cried, unable to hold his tears back any longer as he buried his face against her shoulder.

“I know, Spike. I know you are, but it wasn’t your fault,” Buffy assured him, holding him tight as he cried against her in earnest now. “You have to believe me, it wasn’t you. You aren’t the demon that killed those girls. You’re a good man – you’re the man I love.”

“I love you so much, Buffy. Please forgive me,” he begged.

Buffy clamped her own eyes shut against the tears that had begun falling again, her heart felt like it had been wrenched from her chest and torn into a million pieces. If anyone should be begging forgiveness it should be her. It had been her idea, her plan to make him The First’s bitch … he’d done it for her, she knew. She’d sent him into the den of evil to be raped and used by The First … she’d done that to him. What kind of monster was she, anyway?  One that didn’t deserve the love and dedication of this man in her arms, that was for certain.

“I forgive you … can you forgive me?” she choked out through her tears.

A bone-deep sob wracked Spike’s body and all he could do was nod against her as he unraveled completely in her arms, unable to stop the landslide of guilt and shame now that it had begun. Buffy held him, as he’d held her earlier, letting him cleanse his heart with tears. And she cried with him, her own guilt and shame for putting him through it flowing out in a salty torrent of remorse. 

“I’m sorry, Spike … I’m so sorry,” she whimpered against him. Her own repentant sobs joined his as they clung to each other in the churning sea of guilt and sorrow, just barely keeping each other from drowning.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Gradually, a tranquil silence fell over the house. All their tears were spent. All their recriminations voiced. All the forgiveness that could be bestowed had been offered and received, if not yet fully accepted. 

Now all that was left between them was a hushed intimacy. There was a shared understanding of the sorrow and pain in each of their hearts, and the sharing of it made it bearable.

Slowly and gently Spike pulled away from Buffy, getting to his feet and silently offering her his hand. Her eyes met his as she rose, her warm hand in his cool one. There seemed no need for words now, and neither of them spoke as they started up the stairs together.

On the second floor, Spike led her into the bathroom – they were both covered in blood and grime, and the stench of fear and death. Buffy caught her reflection in the mirror and grimaced. She was splattered with blood and worse, and smeared with dirt. She had scratches, cuts, and bruises peppered over her face and neck – and the rest of her body, for that matter, but she at least couldn’t see those. She still wasn’t used to her raven hair, leopard spots, fangs, and glowing red eyes, and it always made her start slightly when she caught her reflection in a window or mirror.

Buffy didn’t recognize the person in the mirror. She felt like an imposter in someone else’s skin. Would she ever get used to it? Used to being more demon than human?

Spike saw her distress and touched a finger to her chin, turning her away from the reflection to face him. He shook his head, dismissing her fears, and touched a soft kiss to her spotted brow, then to each cheekbone, and finally to her split and swollen lips, telling her, without words, that she was still Buffy. She was still the woman he loved.

When the kiss broke, Spike pulled back and touched her face softly, his eyes holding hers, not looking away. He was not afraid of the darkness she’d taken in, not deterred or repelled by her appearance in the least.

“You are as beautiful as the first day I saw you. This changes nothing,” he whispered into the silence. The deep resonance of his voice filled the small room, pouring over her like a warm, liquid embrace.

Buffy took in a deep, relieved breath and let it out slowly. Her worried eyes softened, and the corners of her mouth curved into a small, woeful, but also thankful, fanged smile.

“What I said before about looking desperate?” Spike continued, shaking his head. “Was a lie. It’s bloody hot, in an X-Men, Mystique kinda way,” he admitted giving her an appreciative smile.

Buffy bit her lip shyly, careful of her fangs. She felt a weight lift off her shoulders; he still wanted her, even like this. He wasn’t disgusted by her demon, which was no longer hidden, but on full display for the world to see.

“Ya don’t shapeshift, do ya? Not gonna go to bed with Mystique and wake up with Wolverine, am I?” he teased.

Buffy snorted out a short laugh and shook her head. “Not so far,” she assured him.

She turned then and bent over the tub, turning on the shower, letting the water begin to get hot for them.  Buffy removed her boots, setting them aside. She then lifted her grubby ‘Bitch’ t-shirt off over her head and tossed it to the other side of the room, followed quickly by her blood-soaked bra, and then her ripped and filthy jeans.

Spike had gotten his boots off but was still struggling with the bandages around his torso as steam began filling the room. Buffy moved to help him, finding the end of the gauze and unwrapping him, like unwrapping a mummy. As the bandage fell away, Buffy ran a hand gently over the wound in Spike’s abdomen. She was happy to see that it was well on the way to healing, the blood that Dawn had given him augmenting his normal healing powers.  It was still red and angry looking, but not a bloody, gaping wound any longer.

She looked up then and met his eyes in a silent inquiry. He answered her with a short nod, he was okay … ‘tis but a scratch’. She gave him a relieved smile in return, neither of them wanting to break the peaceful silence that surrounded them, the only sound in the whole house being the water raining down from the showerhead and splashing in the tub.

Spike unfastened his belt then and unbuttoned his blood-stained jeans. Peeling them off was a bit of a struggle, however. The blood had soaked through and stuck to his skin like glue, but he finally managed, kicking them over into the pile with Buffy’s discarded clothes.

Buffy pulled the shower curtain back and stepped in to the hot spray. She winced at first when the water hit her skin, stinging the myriad of cuts and scrapes, a reminder of the battles she’d fought the last couple of days. And then Spike’s cool lips touched her neck, nuzzling her warm flesh gently, a soft, soothing comfort from the pain. Him being here with her was a reminder that, despite the losses and the pain, they were winning this war. At least so far.

Spike’s hands skimmed up her sides from hips to shoulders and began massaging the tension and stress from her muscles with his strong fingers. She moaned then, letting her head fall forward beneath the spray, her eyes closed, as he kneaded the tight muscles along her neck and shoulders. His fingers dug into her tension-filled sinew, squeezing hard and then releasing, forcibly driving the strain from her body. His lips touched soft kisses in the wake of his powerful fingers, which went straight to her heart, easing the shroud of sorrow and sense of loss that weighed it down.

“We’ll make a new home,” she whispered into the silence, barely audible above the flowing water.

“Yes,” he murmured in reply, his lips leaving her skin momentarily.

“New memories,” Buffy continued softly.

“Yes,” he assured her. “New memories t’ go with the old. Haven’t lost them, luv. The house wasn’t them. They’re still with you, inside you, part of you … in your heart and soul.”     

New tears slipped from her eyes, washed away by the warm water, as the truth of that sunk in. The house was gone, but all the joy and laughter and love – and even sadness and loss – that she’d known in that house were still with her. The First couldn’t take that away from her. It was part of her.

Spike spilled a large measure of shampoo into his palm and began to work it into her thick, raven hair. His strong fingers massaging her scalp, working the foaming suds all over her head, driving the last vestiges of her stress headache away, sending it floating off with the steam that rose from the water pouring over them.

His touch was succor for her soul; she’d missed him terribly. Not just his touch, but his advice, his smile, his laugh, his support, his love, even his sarcasm and smart-ass remarks. They’d both been through hell, now it was time for a small taste of heaven – they deserved at least that much – before diving back into the battle.

When he’d finished, Buffy leaned forward again, beneath the hot spray of clear water. She closed her eyes as the water washed over her head, sluicing down her body in warm rivers of salvation, cleansing more than just her skin, but her sorrowful soul, as well. She felt renewed, reborn even, perhaps even truly forgiven.

With her hair clean and rinsed, Spike lathered soap into his hands and began washing what remained of the filth and blood from Buffy’s body. His hands glided over her skin like silk, cleaning away not just the grime, but also the tension, heartache, and shame from her.  His touch was cathartic, firm and soft, gentle and strong, caring and forgiving, cleansing her heart as surely as he did her skin.

His lips followed the trail of suds from his hands as they slid down the back of her body, the clear, hot water washing them away almost as quickly as he scrubbed the grime from her skin. And then he gently turned her around to face him. Her eyes opened and met his as the water pounded on her back, sending warm droplets splattering over them both.

Spike’s soapy hands settled on her shoulders as he leaned in and kissed her deeply, his task forgotten for the moment. They moaned against each other’s lips as their tongues danced and swirled dangerously between her sharp fangs. Their passion and desire kindling gradually, like a slow burning fuse, warming them both from within.

Buffy’s hands slid up his strong arms, her fingers gliding gently over every hill and valley of finely toned muscle on their way to his shoulders. She relished every inch of soft skin and hard muscle beneath her palms, part of the dichotomy of Spike which she loved.

She’d dreamt of their reunion, while asleep and awake, but none of her imaginings had been like this: quiet and gentle with their primal passion running as subtle undercurrent of desire beneath the surface. It had rarely been like this between them. Quiet and gentle was not usually the way their desire was expressed, but now it seemed the only way for it to be. It wasn’t only their bodies in need of reconnection, but their hearts and souls as well.

The kiss broke naturally, softly, and their eyes met again, her startling cat-eyes now familiar to him, and yet new at the same time. Spike touched her face, his blue eyes delving into the depths of her demon’s red ones, studying them, exploring every nuance and hue within.

“They glitter … like metallic specs of gold deep inside tryin’ to get out,” he murmured to her as the hot water continued splashing off her shoulders and coating him with clear droplets of warmth.

Buffy looked down then, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m sorry, I can’t get them to … go back.”

“I’ll teach you, luv,” he assured her, kissing each lowered lid gently.

“What if they won’t?” she asked softly, looking back up at him worriedly.

“Then I’ll be able t’ fall into that glittering fire forever, won’t I?” Spike assured her in a low whisper.

“You really don’t mind? I mean … not exactly what you signed up for,” she pointed out, running a hand through her wet, raven-black hair.

 “I signed up for _you_. Your heart, your soul, your darkness and your light,” Spike rasped in a low, heartfelt voice. “I love you, Buffy. No matter what, I’m yours, for all eternity,” he replied, touching a finger to the diamond eternity necklace hanging from the chain around her neck.

Buffy pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, careful of her fangs, and nodded slowly. “I love you too, Spike,” she replied softly.

Spike shifted into his vampire features, his fangs extending, his blue eyes turning gold, his smooth brow becoming ridged. “Do ya love me less now?” he asked gently, holding her gaze intently with his demonic eyes.

Buffy lifted a hand up and traced his vampiric countenance gently with her fingers. She explored each change and shift in him as if reading Braille, slowly shaking her head ‘no’ the whole time. “I love your heart and soul, your darkness and your light, for all eternity,” she replied softly, reflecting his words back.

Spike pushed the demon down, back into the shadows, his blue eyes emerging and focusing on her again. He shrugged one shoulder and lifted an inquiring brow in a silent affirmation of his point. Buffy nodded, understanding his meaning fully, as she reached out and took the soap from his hand.

Buffy began lathering it up as he’d done, washing the grime from his body, starting at his neck and working her way down slowly over his chiseled shoulders and chest, his loving arms, his washboard abs. She took her time, tenderly washing away all the horrors of the past days from his body. By the time she got to his naughty bits, his cock was standing at full attention, yearning for her touch.

Spike took the soap back from her as she stroked his shaft, her sudsy hand sliding like velvet over his hardness. His balls filled her palm as she slid her hand back, fondling them softly, covering the heavy sac with the creamy foam. Spike moaned in appreciation as she bathed him, her warm hand moving from his balls to his yearning cock and back again with gentle care.

He lathered more soap onto her body, also starting at her neck and working down. His hands swirled the soft, aromatic foam over her breasts, circling her areolas with a feathery touch, bringing her sensitive nipples to hardness in an instant.  He caressed her soft mounds of flesh tenderly, teasing her nipples, sending gooseflesh racing over her body, tingling up and down her skin in waves of pleasure.

Spike let one hand trail down over her flat stomach, covering her skin with the silky soap, washing away all traces of grime from her body. Buffy shivered as he slipped his hand between her thighs, letting two fingers delve into the soft warmth between her labia. He stroked back and forth gently, as she was doing to his cock, teasing her clit exactly as he knew she loved, lighting fires in her blood, sending small sparks of desire traveling through her veins.

And then their hands were moving again, touching every inch of skin in loving caresses, cleaning every drop of blood from each other’s bodies and souls. It was sexual, but it was mostly spiritual. Their bruised and battered souls reconnected in the tender, reverent dance, cleansed of their sins by the clear, flowing water. The guilt and darkness within was pushed back by the light kindled through the gentle touch of their love.

There were no words now. There was no need for them. The silence let their hearts and souls speak louder than any words could.

Still without words, Buffy slipped behind Spike, swapping places, letting him indulge fully in the rain of hot, clean water that poured from the shower.

Spike leaned into it, letting the warmth soak into him, all the way to his bones. And, as he had done for her, Buffy dug her fingers firmly into the knot of hard muscles running from his shoulders to his neck, massaging the tension from them, and drawing a soft moan from her husband.

Spike let his eyes fall closed and just let himself feel. Feel her hands move over his back, massaging, caressing, cleaning the blood and gore from his body. Buffy’s hands felt soft, silken against his skin, but strong and powerful at the same time. There was no rush to her movements as she swirled the soap over him. She left no trace of the horrors from the last days on his body. No blood. No gore. No filth. No stench of evil.

Spike sighed in pleasure as she turned her attention to his hair, smoothing shampoo over his curls and then tenderly working it in. Her strong fingers massaged his scalp as he’d done hers, working the cleansing bubbles deep into his soft, thick, platinum curls. The First had made him forget what love was, what connection was, what heaven felt like. She was reminding him with this simple, caring act. He was loved. He was worthy. He was not a monster.

As the water poured over him, clear and warm, it suddenly occurred to him that she had been right. He wasn’t what The First had made him do. It didn’t define him. He had done horrible things for the greater good; that did not make him a horrible person. What he’d been in the past was not who he was now. What he’d done under the influence of The First was not who he was, either.

Spike had fought hard to be the man Buffy deserved. The First had tried to take that away from him. She was showing him that it had not succeeded as she cleansed his body and his soul of the sins he had perpetrated while under the control of darkness.

When the last of the suds slid gently down his legs and off his body, Spike stood for another few moments beneath the hot, pounding shower, then turned the tap off, settling the house back into silence once again.

Buffy stepped out into the steam-filled bathroom, and Spike followed her. She reached for a towel, but Spike stopped her by sweeping her warm, dripping body up into his arms. He left a trail of wet footprints and drops of fresh, clear water in his path as he carried her across the hall and into her bedroom.

This room, too, was exactly as it had been the last time Buffy had seen it. She tried not to think about what had been lost now, though. That way would only lead to sadness, and she knew that wasn’t what either of them needed now.

Spike laid her down gently on the soft mattress, her skin still wet and flushed from the hot shower, and joined her. They came together then, their bodies slipping silkily against each other, water dripping from their skin and hair. It was like every time before, and completely different at the same time.

There was no frantic need or blazing lust, but there was passion and love and a soul-deep need for connection. Their eyes met and held, their bodies shifting and aligning as if controlled by one heart.

There were no words that could be said that conveyed more than the soft gasps in that moment they became one yet again. Her body welcomed his into her supple warmth, a velvet sheath wrapping around his yearning sword. His hardness filled her, slipping blissfully into her depths, drawn into her core by a force larger than either of them alone – by the combined force of their love.

Buffy’s hands touched feathery caresses over his damp shoulders and down his back as he lowered down from hands to elbows atop her, their eyes only breaking contact when his lips captured hers in a deep, languorous kiss.

Her legs wrapped around his slim hips as the cooling water droplets trickled and pooled between them, forming small puddles in the hollows of muscle and sinew. Water dripped from his hair onto her warm skin, sending tingling goosebumps racing up and down her body. A shiver swept over her, running down her spine, a combination of desire and chill.

And then their hips were moving as one, a slow rock against each other, a gentle rise and fall, a languid dance in the silence, moving to the music which played softly in their souls.

Spike dusted her face with cool, soft kisses. Her leopard-spotted brows and cheekbones, her eyelids, the tip of her nose, her chin, her cheeks, her jaw – his lips worshiped them all.   And then their eyes met again and held. Her red cat eyes, burning with golden flecks of desire, gazed unblinking up into the depths of his blue orbs. Buffy felt like she could fall into them and be consumed by the ocean of love they contained, which he was pouring over her like an ardent waterfall of devotion. 

She reached one hand up to his face, her fingers lightly tracing warmth along his strong jaw, his scarred brow, his razor-sharp cheekbones, those full, soft lips. She touched each one reverently, as if trying to memorize the feel of them, to hold the perfection of him within her fingers, within her heart, for all eternity.

For all she knew, she may have to. The war with The First was not over. There were no guarantees that either of them would survive it.

Buffy slipped her hand behind his neck and tenderly pulled his lips to hers. She never wanted to forget how he tasted, how his soft, full lips felt against hers, how his tongue flirted with hers in a slow, sensuous dance. She wanted to remember how his muscles rippled beneath her fingers as his hips thrust gently forward and how they relaxed when he pulled back. She wanted to remember how it felt to have him inside her, stretching her, filling her, igniting her deepest desires. She wanted to remember how he made her heart dance in her chest, her breath catch in her throat, and her channel quiver in pleasure as he joined with her. She wanted to remember his blue, adoring eyes, which seemed to pour his love over her like a sweet elixir, enfolding her in a blanket of warmth. She wanted to remember everything.

The power she’d taken in from the shadow men felt like a vast sea of deadly venom in her soul – but deadly to who? Most of the time she felt barely capable of containing it. Sometimes she couldn’t, and it spilled over, leaving death in its wake. It had done that with Caleb. She’d lost herself in those moments when the demon was freed, drowning in the dark poison that she’d taken in. It frightened her. What if she couldn’t contain it? What if she turned that darkness on the people she loved?

But, with his love as her spark, she’d managed to hold onto a flicker of light there, deep down in the bottomless pit of obsidian, and now Spike was fanning that flame. It felt like a small flicker in the darkness, just barely there, like a candle in a sea of black, but it was growing now.

Spike was fueling it. Driving the dark back as he’d done when she’d first returned from heaven. His touch. His kiss. His body against hers. His heart pouring out love and devotion. His soul reaching out to hers with a gentle, loving light.

Their bodies moved together, a languid, liquid dance of desire and pleasure. Each giving and taking, their bodies rising and falling in a gentle rhythm that was no less intense for the tenderness of it. Their lips met and parted and met again, teeth nipping at flesh, tongues darting out to taste and tease.

And the fire grew. The flicker expanded into a blaze, keeping the dark venom more easily at bay. Buffy’s heart thudded in her ears, her soft gasps of pleasure tickled warmth against Spike’s lips, and hope blossomed in the light deep inside her. Hope for the world. Hope for her friends. Hope for Dawn. Hope for all the frightened girls who had come to her for protection. Hope for a future to make new memories in with Spike.

Hope is powerful. Hope drives us. Hope fuels us. Hope makes us try. Without hope, there is nothing to fight for.

She opened her heart to it, fully and completely. She took the hope Spike was pouring over her in just as she’d taken in the power of the demon from the shadow men. It was fresh and warm gliding over her skin, like the first gentle breeze of spring after a long, cold winter. Her heart rejoiced, floating on the wings of that hope like dandelion fluff joyously drifting in a balmy, gentle wind.

Buffy clung tightly to Spike’s neck, pulling away from the kiss, and lifted up, touching her lips lightly against his ear.

“I love you, Spike. Forever, baby. I love you, love you … love you,” she breathed in a desperate chant as a pulsing wave of rapture washed through her body, leaving her floating in his arms in a calm, warm sea of hope and love.

“I love you, Buffy … so much … don’t ‘ave the words … love you forever,” Spike replied, his voice husky and rumbling against her ear as he joined her in paradise, spilling his rapture deep within her quivering, slick depths.

“God, Buffy,” he murmured breathlessly against her flushed skin, his body shuddering in divine rhapsody, floating weightless in her arms in that same warm sea of pure love.

It wasn’t earth shattering, it wasn’t a whirling rocket to the stars, there were no screams or shattered furniture, there was no pain or blinding rapture, but it was perhaps the deepest he’d ever fallen into her. Directly into her open, unguarded heart with no defenses up to keep him at arm’s length. That protection she’d always kept around the very core of her being was gone, leaving her completely open and exposed.  

“I love you … Spike … I love you,” she breathed throatily, pulling his body down atop her so his full weight pressed her into the soft mattress. She hugged him fervently with arms and legs, as if trying to meld them into one being.

Spike slipped his arms beneath her and wrapped them around her in an ardent embrace, feeling slightly drunk by the surge of pure, raw emotion from Buffy that he’d been swept up in. She’d let him in completely. Into that fragile, frightened, vulnerable part of herself that she’d worked so hard to keep safe and hidden from the world.  That part of herself that she’d vowed to never let anyone into again, not after Angel had so utterly and completely shattered it.

“Oh … Buffy,” Spike moaned reverently against her ear as he clung to her, the simple words holding a deeper meaning, more than a whole dictionary of words could convey. He wanted nothing more than to stay right here for the rest of eternity, buried deep in her body and in her soul.

“Tell me … please tell me, Spike,” Buffy whispered against him, suddenly feeling desperately, dreadfully afraid.

She’d dropped the walls completely, letting him into the fragile, glass menagerie that was her innermost heart. He could so easily shatter it, destroy it utterly.  Feeling vulnerable was more than uncomfortable for her, it was downright terrifying. She’d worked so hard to glue it all back together and keep it safe, but now he could destroy it all with one swipe of his hand, one cruel word, one mocking jibe.

“I love you,” he replied softly. “Until the end of time and beyond.”

“I don’t want ‘beyond’ – not yet – please, Spike,” she beseeched him, as her heart began pounding against her ribs painfully.

“Make new memories, we will,” he assured her solemnly, still clinging to her, his lips just a fraction of an inch from her ear. “You and me and Dawnie. I promise you, Buffy. Not leavin’ ya. Never again.”

She nodded against his shoulder, still clinging to him as tightly as he was her, as if the other might float away like a feather in the wind if they were released. Buffy swallowed back frightened, tremulous tears and took a deep, soothing breath to calm the tinge of panic that had surfaced.

She felt the warm light of his love wrap around her vulnerable heart like a soft, warm mantle of hope with his promise – he wouldn’t shatter her. Spike would protect her heart with his own in this life, and even beyond, forever, until the end of time.

“I want to make a million new memories with you, Spike.  I love you, baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike have a bit more connecting to do, but then I promise the full plan will be revealed and we’ll find out just exactly what happened that got everyone here, safe and sound.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	77. Brief and Debrief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike take ‘five more minutes’.
> 
> (How hot is that freaking banner?! Do I need to say this chapter is NSFW? .... You knew that already, didn't you?)

* * *

 

Buffy and Spike were jerked awake by an earsplitting buzzing that filled the bedroom, a piercing contrast to the peaceful silence that had surrounded them through the night. They disentangled from each other frantically and both leapt out of the bed and onto their feet, naked as newborns, but ready to fight in an instant. They turned this way and then that, eyes wide, adrenaline pumping, searching for the threat, but nothing jumped at them or seemed out of place.

“What the bloody hell?” Spike demanded, relaxing his stance and looking at Buffy as the infernal buzzing continued.

Buffy shook her head a moment, clearing the cobwebs of sleep from her brain, then slammed a fist down on the alarm clock on the bedside table. It buzzed one more time, faltered, then chirped drunkenly before it slowly died with a wheezing hiss of defeat.

Buffy sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and flopped backwards, one hand covering her eyes. “I think that’s Willow’s way of saying we’ve been in here long enough,” she muttered grouchily, but didn’t move to rise.

“Well, she can kiss my lily-white arse,” Spike groused crossly, also sitting back down on the bed, and rubbing his eyes wearily.

“I thought that was my job,” Buffy teased, peering at him with one glittering red eye from beneath her arm.

“Got plenty o’ arse t’ go around, luv,” Spike assured her with a shrug before he flopped back onto his back next to her.

“Oh, you do, huh?” Buffy asked, rolling over atop him, straddling his hips, and pinning him down with a dangerous gleam in her feline eyes. “Thought I made my position on sharing abundantly clear.”

“One little kiss couldn’t hurt, now could it, luv?” he wondered, his own eyes dancing with amusement as his hands wandered slowly up her thighs and settled on her hips.

“Oh, it could hurt, Spike. It could hurt _a lot_ ,” she threatened, baring her fangs in warning.

“Promises, promises, Slayer,” he teased, pulling her down and capturing her mouth, fangs and all, in a fervent kiss.

Buffy moaned against his lips as pinpricks of renewed desire began blazing across her skin.

“How long ya figure?” Spike gasped against her mouth as his hands clutched the globes of her ass, squeezing the soft flesh urgently.

“Ten minutes?” Buffy guessed between nibbles of his full bottom lip.

“Fuuuck…” Spike moaned, flipping them over roughly.

“Exactly,” Buffy agreed, scrambling back from the edge of the bed to give Spike room. “Fuck me,” she demanded, spreading her legs and reaching for him.

He was against her in an instant, pressing her legs up, hooking them over his shoulders, opening her to him fully, her sweet pussy glistening with desire. He couldn’t resist a taste as the aroma of their coupling last night and her renewed lust floated up to him.

“Buffy … luv,” he moaned, dipping his tongue between her folds and sliding it hungrily over her sex, teasing, tasting, burning her body with desire.

Her hips lifted towards his mouth in rapture, demanding more … more.  No one could ever match Spike’s talented tongue, his soft, sweet lips, the way he nipped at her yearning flesh with his teeth. No one had ever craved her the way he did.  

Buffy lost herself in him every time, and now was no different. Lost in the way his tongue delicately massaged her flesh and thrust greedily into her channel, as if he were stranded in a desert and she his only oasis. Lost in the way his lips suckled her clit and made her bundle of nerves swell and throb in need of him. Lost in the way his growls of pleasure rumbled through her, straight to her very core, burning her with lust. Lost in the way his eyes closed in bliss, in the painstaking detail he took to make sure that every part of her sex was worshiped, tasted, seduced to the very edge of reason.

“God, Spike,” she breathed, her hands tangling in his soft curls, urging him on.

Spike’s groans of pleasure vibrated against her sensitive folds as he inhaled her sumptuous scent.  He desired her pussy like a man stricken with the ultimate thirst, a thirst that would only be quenched by the taste of her, and he meant to devour every drop.   

Buffy felt her release building deep inside, her ecstasy about to flood his mouth as he slipped his tongue into her throbbing channel and began fucking her, hard and deep. The tip of his tongue curled, finding that small button of rapture deep inside her supple channel, raking over it feverishly. And then he slipped one slick finger into her tight ass, pumping in and out slowly as he lifted her over the edge.

“Yes! God, baby, yes, yes, yessss!” she hissed. Her thighs fastened urgently around his head, closing of their own accord to imprison him there. Her toes curled with the power of her climax, her pleasure cresting to new, higher peaks with each passing moment.  Buffy’s body shook as she spilled over with pleasure, his tongue and finger never ceasing their movements as her moans filled the room.

Her sweet cum flowed like honey from her body, flooding Spike’s senses, spinning his head with the intoxicating rapture of her release. He drank greedily from her chalice of bliss. Every drop of thick, warm cream being sucked and licked from her spasming quim, from her slick, swollen folds, from her hot flesh. He trailed his tongue all the way from her sweet ass up to her pulsing clit, devouring her essence, drowning in her sea of rapture.

And then he was atop her, his cum-covered lips crashing down on hers. He folded her body in half with her legs hooked over his shoulders as his cock found its home deep inside her shuddering channel.

Buffy gasped against his lips as his thick, hard cock was buried inside her in one long, brutal, desperate thrust of his hips. She was still floating, suspended in the clouds of ecstasy, and now he was lifting her higher yet, as he drove into her feverishly. His pubic bone crashed down against her sensitive clit, sending bursts of brilliant sparks dancing and swirling through her body. His hardness stretched her opening, tugging and pulling against her yearning flesh with every thrust and parry of his hips into her. His balls slapped wetly against her ass as his tempo reached a fever pitch, fueled by avid lust and insatiable hunger.

An incoherent stream of strangled moans and gasps of pleasure flowed from Buffy’s lips as he took everything she offered, and gave her all the passion in his soul. She clung to his strong shoulders, certain that she’d fly apart into a million shards of brilliant, burning rapture at any moment without him anchoring her.

“Yer demon’s so bloody hot … fuck, Buffy,” Spike panted, staring down into her eyes, which glittered gold and crimson, full of primal lust and desire within her leopard’s mask. Her shimmering, raven hair fanned out against the white linens, framing her dark beauty, such a contrast to the bright sunshine he had come to know so well. But she was just as beautiful, just as hot, like a mirror image … the same, but opposite.

Buffy felt the demon essence inside her writhe and preen, making her eyes glow brighter and her body flush hotter. The dark essence spilled out of its little box, reaching for Spike’s demon with its power, its lust, its need. She wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and drew him down as she lifted her mouth up to his neck, her eyes wild and hungry, her body quivering with lust for more than just his cock.

A low, purring growl rumbled up from her core as her mouth closed against Spike’s shoulder, just where it met his neck. She bit down, her small, sharp fangs slipping into his cool flesh like needles, making Spike jerk and thrust his cock into her with utter, savage abandon.

Spike’s blood welled against her lips and coated her tongue with a cool, spicy tang of glittering black diamonds, making her shudder and tremble beneath him. Her channel spasmed madly, her body and mind out of her control as she tasted his demonic power, taking him into her as he’d done her before. The Slayer-demon inside her rejoiced, whirling rapturously within the foggy, sparkling haze of their joining.

“Mine … mine … _mine_ ,” Buffy snarled against his neck, his blood staining her lips as crimson as her eyes.

“ _Mine_ ,” Spike growled back, letting his demon surface and prick her neck as she’d done his – not a full bite, but just enough for blood to well against his lips and coat his tongue with the burning fire of her essence. “I bloody love you … Buffy … fuck! _MINE_!”

A low and ominous growl rumbled against her flushed skin as her blood fanned the flames of his lust even higher. He slammed his cock into her with brutal, primal force, and she matched his ferocity, blow for blow. Growls and snarls, grunts and shrieks filled the air as the two demons came together, joining, claiming the other as their own.

Feral. Primal. Savage. Rapturous.

Buffy’s scream of ultimate release started somewhere below her navel where the head of his cock pounded against her cervix, demanding and brutal. It exploded out in all directions, making all her muscles quiver uncontrollably, her skin prickle and burn like the fires of hell were licking her body. Her head spun, glittering black and white sparks erupting behind her eyelids, and her heart pummeled her ribs, threatening to escape. When the sound reached Spike’s ears, the infinitesimal modicum of control he’d been clinging to vanished like wisps of smoke in a hurricane. His balls contracted in the most painfully pleasurable way imaginable and then exploded in rush of rapture, just like her scream.

His hips jerked against her of their own accord, out of his control, and hers matched his, thrusting with primal need. His cock swelled spasmodically, filling her core with his cool, slippery spunk. Buffy clung to him, her spirit whirling through the stratosphere in an astral freefall of bliss as their bodies found their sweet, savage release.

And then Spike was there with her, twirling and floating somewhere beyond the edge of the universe, where there was nothing but them. No sun, no stars, no moon, no life or death, no up or down, no darkness or light, no buzzing alarm clock …

Wait … what?

Spike growled furiously and slammed his fist down on the torture device on the table next to the bed, utterly shattering it and scattering shards of plastic and circuitry all over the floor.

Buffy moaned, still floating softly in the clouds, and pulled his attention back to her. Spike unhooked her quivering legs from his shoulders and let them fall limply down onto the bed beside him, then let his body settle gently down atop his Slayer, his girl, his soulmate, his lover, his friend, his wife, his salvation … and now his mate, claimed by blood.

Buffy sighed, wrapping her arms around him tightly, still lost in the pleasure of that far-away heaven he’d transported her to.

Spike kissed her, tasting his blood on her lips, the glittering darkness of her demon slipping contentedly back into the little box where she’d been keeping it at bay.

Buffy blinked her eyes open, still crimson and gold, but softer now, like a swirling watercolor in the rain.

“Mine,” she rasped out through her raw throat, touching her tongue to the corner of her mouth where his blood lingered.

Spike smiled down on her, her blood still staining his fangs. “Mine,” he whispered back, his golden eyes slowly slipping back to blue, before touching his lips to hers again in a tender, loving kiss.

Buffy sighed dazedly as the kiss ended and he settled his body back down against her.

“Five more minutes,” she muttered dreamily against his shoulder as he wrapped his arms beneath her with a spent, contented sigh. “Legs not working.”

Spike moaned his agreement as his eyes fell closed and his body relaxed completely. He wasn’t sure his legs would work just now, either. _Bloody hell. She’d bloody claimed him. Bloody fucking hell._

 

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy was just reaching for the front doorknob of not-actually-her-house when the door opened, making her jump slightly and back up.

“Oh!” Willow exclaimed when she came face to face with Buffy and Spike on the other side of the door. “I … ummm … good! You’re up!” she stammered, then recovered her composure. “And less smelly.”

“And even dressed in clothes that Faith didn’t pick out,” Buffy added, not quite as brightly as Willow, but still happy to be in some regular jeans and a t-shirt that didn’t proclaim her bitch status, no matter how well-earned it may be. 

They’d also found black jeans and a black t-shirt for Spike in the closet of the magically created house. His duster, however, was still on the sidelines, caked-in-blood and other unmentionables. He’d have to see about getting it cleaned … again. She wondered briefly if they could have it Simonized so all the gore would just slide off it in the future.

“I thought maybe you didn’t hear the alarm, so I was coming to check,” Willow explained.

“Heard it. Destroyed it. Fun times,” Buffy assured her with an insincere smile that showed her fangs.

“Where’s the brandy?” Spike asked stepping from behind Buffy to address Willow.

“I … uhhh …huh?” the witch hesitated, her brows drawn together in question, looking back and forth between Buffy and Spike. 

“Figured you were on a search and rescue mission … should have some bloody brandy like them dogs in the Alps,” Spike informed her, sniffing derisively.

“Oh, right. Um, I don’t think we have any?” the witch replied, unsure and apologetic.

“Who the bloody hell’s in charge around here? Need t’ have a word,” Spike retorted.

“Umm … Giles, I guess? But now that Buffy’s here …” Willow hedged, looking at the Slayer.

“Now that Buffy’s here,” the Slayer repeated with a sigh. “She can get the brandy.”

“Well, before that, Giles thought we should debrief you guys,” Willow told them.

“Debrief us?  I didn’t think we were very brief, did you Spike?” Buffy asked, her leopard-spotted brows drawn together in question.

Spike shrugged. “Last one was a bit of a quickie, yeah,” he reminded her. “I reckon the others were extended play, though.”

“So, Giles is gonna … what? Give us more time? So why did that stupid alarm keep going off interrupting us?” Buffy wondered, looking at Willow.

“No … not … brief like a quickie, _debrief_ like talk about what happened and what we should do next,” Willow explained.  

“Oh, so Giles wants to have a meeting. Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” Buffy questioned, frowning.

“Uhhh … yeah, my bad,” Willow apologized, furrowing her brow in consternation and turning to go.

“Will?” Buffy called before following the witch. “These clothes aren’t gonna magically go ‘poof’ when we walk out of here, will they?”

“Oh! No!” Willow assured her, turning back to face her. “They’re from The Gap. Well, yours are. Spike’s are from his crypt.”

“Oi! I don’t rate new clothes?” he wondered, glowering at the witch.

“You didn’t blow up your crypt, you blew up Buffy’s house, so no. No new clothes for you,” Willow chastised him firmly.

“She has a point,” Buffy agreed with a casual shrug as she started following Willow out of not-her-house. “Should’ve blown up the crypt if you wanted new clothes.”

Spike snorted and rolled his eyes, following behind Buffy. “And The First thinks it’s evil … doesn’t know you two birds.”

“But it will,” Buffy added smugly.

“It’s doomed,” he proclaimed.

“So doomed,” Buffy agreed brightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The debriefing will be next and all those questions about their plan of who, what, when, and how will hopefully be answered! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!! GIVE IT UP FOR HER! THIS BANNER IS FUCKING HOT!


	78. DEFCON 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is debriefed … not in the fun way of losing your briefs, but in the talking way, though, there could be oil involved.

* * *

 

Buffy and Spike followed Willow into a room on the first floor of the mansion which had a sign that once said, ‘Conference Room,’ on it. At some point someone had crossed that out with a thick, permanent marker and scrawled ‘War Room’ on the door itself, then ‘DEFCON 2’ below it.    

Inside was a long, oak conference table surrounded by people sitting in comfortable-looking chairs like you’d see at a board meeting for a big company. Buffy only did a cursory glance at them, though, her attention being drawn by the aroma of food and coffee on a sideboard just inside the door. Apparently, everyone had been waiting for a while. All the food was gone, and the two coffee dispensers were empty. Buffy looked at the crumbs left in the platters where pastries had been and frowned as her stomach rumbled audibly.

“I wanted a donut,” she whined. “And coffee.”

“Then you should’ve been, you know, more timely with the arriving,” Xander chastised her, as he strode toward her and drew her into a tight hug. “Thank God you’re okay,” he whispered against her ear. “I was so worried.”

Buffy returned the hug as the pangs of fear and anxiety she’d felt when the house blew up resurfaced in her heart. “Right back atcha,” she assured him, her voice thick with emotion.

“I’m alright, too … ta ever so for the concern,” Spike interrupted sourly.

Xander released Buffy and immediately wrapped his arms around a startled Spike, giving the shocked vampire a huge bear hug.

“Bloody hell!” Spike exclaimed, pushing Xander away. “Hands off the evil vampire! Yer gettin’ powdered sugar all over m’ clothes, ya git!”

“Glad you’re okay, too,” Xander told Spike, pleased with himself for making Spike splutter with annoyance. “Even though you blew up the freaking house with us in it!”

“Oi! I didn’t blow up the house! I was the _diversion_. The bloody preacher blew it up, thank you very much,” Spike objected, sniffing derisively.

“Good thing you aren’t a very good diversion,” Xander replied. “Or we might all be scattered in little burning embers around the neighborhood right now.”

“Pffft! I’m an excellent diversion. Reckon I can keep Buffy _diverted_ fer hours,” Spike defended, hooking his thumbs over his belt buckle and squaring his shoulders confidently.

“To be fair, it wasn’t Spike’s lack of diversionary skills that tipped me off, it was the smell of gasoline and some chemically-stuff all over Caleb,” Buffy interjected. “I smelled it before I even saw him. I guess having super-smelling does come in handy, despite the creep factor of it.”

“Thank goodness most of the girls were in the basement near the portal, complaining about you being a bossy, demonic bitch when you sent the ‘abandon ship’ signal,” Xander told her. “Otherwise…” he let his voice trail off, shrugging unhappily.

“Well, bitchy-Buffy is good for something, then, huh?” Buffy acknowledged, reaching a hand out and squeezing Xander’s shoulder comfortingly. “Starving, coffee-deprived Buffy is not good for anything though,” she informed him with a sad, puppy-dog pout.

Xander rolled his eyes. “I’ll have you know I am not donut-fetching-guy anymore. I’ve been promoted to Senior Food Procurement Officer. Andrew does the fetching now. Well, actually, he does the _making_ , because the normal donut making people have all fled for their lives. Which, I might add, is not the worst plan I’ve heard.”

“I sooo need to get a hostage when this is all over,” Buffy moaned.  “He _makes_ donuts? I didn’t know people could actually _make_ donuts.”

“Ummm … well, there may be black magic involved,” Xander admitted. “I’ll see if he can whip something up for you.

“How about you, Spike? Donuts? Coffee? Blood of a virgin?” Xander quipped.

Spike cleared his throat awkwardly, his eyes flicking first to Dawn and then to Buffy. The Slayer gave him a miniscule shake of her head, she’d not said anything to anyone about Dawn giving him blood.

“Errr … just pig’s blood, be fine,” Spike said, a bit uncomfortably. “A spot of brandy wouldn’t go amiss, though.”

“I don’t think Andrew can actually make brandy in the time allotted,” Xander replied dryly. “But we might have something a little more volatile than coffee around here. I’ll check.”

Buffy grabbed a bottle of water off the sideboard and turned her attention to the group at the table. Anya, Faith, and Dawn sat on this side of the table, with an empty seat between Anya and Faith where Xander had been sitting.  From the other end of the table, Dawn was waving at the two late arrivals, enjoining them to come sit next to her.

Buffy nodded and started that way, but stopped dead in her tracks as her eyes made it the rest of the way around the other side of the table. Willow and Tara were over there, as well as Giles and Amanda, the newly Chosen Slayer, but there was one other person whom she hadn’t expected.

“What’s he doing here?” Buffy asked loud enough to be heard over the disorganized chatter in the room, making everyone stop talking and look up.

Buffy shifted her piercing red gaze from Robin Wood to Giles, waiting for an answer as an uncomfortable silence fell over the room.

Giles cleared his throat and stood up from his seat next to the latest principal of Sunnydale High to address her. “I invited him. He is a strong fighter and we are woefully short on those at this moment,” the ex-Watcher explained.

“What’s wrong with the schoolmarm, then?” Spike asked, confused.

Buffy locked her penetrating cat eyes on Principal Wood, but answered Spike. “He wants to dust you.”

Spike’s brows went up and he, too, looked at the large, black man. “That so? What’s got ‘is knickers in a twist? Did my blood stain ‘is shiny new floors when I got dragged outta the basement?”

“You killed my mother,” Wood revealed stoically, holding Buffy’s gaze from where he sat across the table from her and Spike.

“Killed a lot of people’s mothers. You’ll have t’ be a bit more specific, mate,” Spike retorted icily.

“Nikki Wood. New York. 1977. Subway. Black leather duster. Ring any bells?” the black man replied just as coolly, shifting his hard, unblinking gaze from Buffy to Spike. “And I’m not your ‘ _mate’_.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed, meeting the large man’s frosty stare across the table. Spike stood silent and still as death for several long moments, his gaze never wavering from the big man’s dark, angry glare. Finally, after what seemed a relative eternity, he gave a short nod and said matter-of-factly, “She was the Slayer. I was a vampire. That's the dance, innit? Both had our parts t’ play – both played ‘em.”

“You think it’s a _dance_? A … a performance, a _play_?” Robin demanded, standing up, his cool demeanor falling away. “It wasn’t some fairytale story or Broadway musical! It was my life! You took the only person in the world who mattered to me. She was everything to me, and you stole her!”

Spike shook his head, refuting him. “Slayers deal in death every day. It’s their art, their gift. They make it with their hands, they feel it in their souls, day after day. They’re bloody born with it! Every Slayer knows that every time they go out, they might not come back. She knew the game intimately. She was as good as Buffy. Cunning, resourceful, strong … bloody artful, she was. She chose the dance, not me.”

“Well, _I_ didn’t choose it!” Robin snarled at him, pressing his curled fists into the tabletop angrily.

“Well, that's the rub, innit? You didn't sign up for it, and so now it's my fault,” Spike shot back. “Sorry t’ disappoint ya, but if it hadn’t been me, it would’a been the next one, or the one after that. She kept dancing, even knowing that, even knowing that you needed her, and _that’s_ what pisses you off. Not that I killed her, but that she chose the mission over you.

“Here’s a little insight into Slayers,” Spike offered grimly. “No matter how many people they've got around them, they fight alone. Life of the Chosen one. The rest of us be damned. Your mother was no different. She chose the mission over you. Just like Buffy chose the mission t’ fight The First, regardless of what her plan might do to the rest of us,” Spike revealed, waving a hand around the table to encompass everyone.

“Grow the fuck up and get over it – move on,” the vampire concluded, glowering at the angry man across the table. “They’re saving the bloody world, they don’t have time to mollycoddle the likes o’ you and me.”

“I’m _nothing_ like you,” the black man snarled, a stake suddenly in his hand as he vaulted up onto the table and then threw himself down at Spike in a furious rage.

Spike stepped to one side and blocked the arm holding the stake with his forearm, steering it well clear of his body. The vamp shoved the big man in the back as he sailed past, propelling him, head first, into the sideboard where the food had been, sending bottles of water bouncing and rolling all over the floor.

“Stop it!” Buffy demanded, stepping between the two men before Robin could regain his feet. She brought her boot down hard on Robin’s wrist, making the principal’s hand open in reflex, releasing the stake. Buffy picked it up and then jerked the large man up by the scruff of his neck, shoving him roughly down the length of the room away from Spike.

“Spike’s right about one thing: I don’t have time for personal vendettas and hurt feelings. I told you before that Spike was vital to this mission, and that hasn’t changed,” she growled at Robin, who had regained his balance and stood facing her, standing down at the end of the table near Dawn.

“I’m trying to save the fucking world here. Giles thinks you can help. I, personally, think we should toss you out and let the Bringers have another shot at you.”

Robin’s eyes narrowed, realization dawning on him. “You didn’t think I’d make it out of that cave. You knew … then … about Spike? About my mother?”

“Give the man a Kewpie doll,” Buffy mocked, folding her arms over her chest, the stake she’d taken from him still in her hand.

“But … how?” he asked, looking at Giles with confusion.

Giles removed his glasses and began polishing them, looking guilty, unable to meet Robin’s dark, imploring gaze.

“Despite all appearances, Giles did _not_ conspire behind my back and turn on Spike, that was just another step in the dance. He told me about you and your vendetta while I was sitting there at the table talking about rescuing Spike. You know, when no one else would go with me? When Willow was too tapped out? When Tara was too weak? When Xander was too pussy-whipped?”

“Hey! I resemble that remark,” Xander piped up, coming back into the room with fresh pots of coffee and a half-full bottle of rum. He was followed closely by Andrew, who had a large tray of freshly baked croissants and chocolate chip muffins, along with a mug of warm blood for Spike.

Buffy turned, looking at the food longingly, her stomach growling in protest when she didn’t go immediately over and devour it.

She turned back to Robin instead, and continued her explanation. “We just decided to use you as …”

“Cannon fodder,” Anya interjected helpfully when Buffy hesitated.

“But, when? I was there the whole time,” Wood wondered, bewildered.

Suddenly, all the other people at the table stood up, twirled around twice and sat back down in unison, as if in a synchronized dance troupe. Well, everyone except Giles, who was already standing and refused to twirl in a circle like a trained monkey doing the Hokey-Pokey.

Robin’s expression grew even more confused as his attention was drawn to the group’s odd behavior.

“I just asked them to do that for me. I’m sorry, did you not hear me?” Buffy wondered sarcastically. “We can communicate without having to use our breath for the actual saying of words,” the Slayer explained, fondling the ametrine communication amulet beneath her crossed arms. She could communicate without touching it – she’d worked hard on being able to do that – but it was easier if she had a finger or two on it.

“You may remember a very long, tense silence during that meeting? Well, it wasn’t exactly silent for us,” Buffy revealed.

Robin shook his head in disbelief and bewilderment, finally shifting his gaze back to the Slayer. “I still might’ve…” he stammered, looking at Spike, who stood behind Buffy, looking smug.

“You might’ve _nothing_!” Buffy contended firmly, dropping her arms down to her sides emphatically. “You were never going to get near Spike in that cave with a Turok-Han and an army of Bringers in there. Neither was I. The First wouldn’t have let that happen. It wasn’t a rescue mission, it was an act … a play, a fucking _dance_ , to make The First _think_ that I was trying to rescue him. To make sure it knew that Spike was still important to this mission, to me, so it would try to use him against us again,” Buffy revealed.

“But I … almost … did,” Robin told her, still slightly bewildered. “I got within ten feet of him before the Bringers swarmed out of another tunnel and I had to run.”

“You know where ‘almost’ counts? Horseshoes and hand grenades,” Buffy informed him. “Even if you had gotten to him, what were you gonna do? Dust him with a plastic stake?” she wondered, breaking the stake in her hand that she’d taken from him to reveal a bright yellow, and very clearly not wooden, center surrounded by plastic faux-wood on the outside. It was the same type of ‘stake’ Buffy had hurtled at Spike in the winery – it certainly looked real – but it wouldn’t have dusted him.  “You think I would’ve given you a _wooden_ stake to take in there?”

Robin’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but no sound came out for several long moments. “But, you fought that … Turok-Han … you could’ve died. I … saved you,” he said finally.

“Well, you _helped_. Which is the only reason you’re still here and not foddering the cannons,” Buffy told him severely. “I fought the Turok-Han hoping that I’d get lucky, find a weakness, something I could exploit. I didn’t really get a very good look at it in the school basement before it bashed my head in. I needed more information about it. There are a whole Hellmouth full of them I need to figure out how to dust; I had to start somewhere.”

“You were … collecting data?” Robin gawped.

Buffy shrugged. “I needed to know exactly what I was up against. I found out.”

“So, you aren’t actually under a thrall …?” Robin asked, though the realization of that truth had already sunk in.

Buffy snorted. “Not even remotely.”

“So … Spike’s actually your husband … right? He could’ve been killed by the Bringers or the Turok-Han,” Wood pointed out.

“Or Caleb … or even Faith,” Buffy added stonily. “Calculated, mission-critical risk,” she revealed, outwardly seeming unfazed by the notion, but inwardly trying to get her stomach to stop doing back flips and somersaults at the reminder. “The First said it wasn’t done with him, it tipped its hand. We’re in a war – we have to take every crumb we’re given and use it.”

“And you … knew?” Wood asked, looking past Buffy to meet Spike’s eyes. “I mean you were beat to shit and burned and … you did that … willingly?”

“Was what Buffy needed me to do, so, yeah, I did it. Took the beatings, took the torture, took Angel prattlin’ on like a poofter for hours on bloody end,” Spike admitted, rolling his eyes derisively. “Listening t’ Captain Forehead go on and on makes a bloke want to fall on a stake. Worst part o’ the whole bloody thing,” he asserted.

Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, shaking her head incredulously.

“Anyway, made sure it was real convincing, yeah?” Spike continued, ignoring her. “Couldn’t just stroll in like a debutant an’ ask fer a date, could I? Made sure The First thought it had properly broken me before I let it bugger me up the ass with…”

Buffy cleared her throat loudly, turning a meaningful, wide-eyed gaze on Spike and then shifting it to Dawn and then back again. Even though Spike’s ‘buggering’ was metaphorical, she wasn’t sure Dawn needed to hear about it.

Spike sniffed and squared his shoulders. “Reckon I’ll just skip over all that romantic drivel, then. Anyway, yeah. Mission’s what matters, right?”

“The mission…” Robin repeated dazedly, pulling out one of the empty chairs near Dawn and dropping down into it heavily. He propped his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands, then muttered, “No matter who it hurts.”

Buffy walked down the length of the room to where he sat and pulled out another chair next to him. “That’s the life of a Slayer. We don’t _want_ to hurt people. I didn’t _want_ to send Spike into the lion’s den. I didn’t _want_ to use all those Potentials as bait to draw The First out. And I’m sure your mom didn’t want to leave you or hurt you,” she explained. “We really don’t have a choice … I mean it’s …”

“It’s like choosing not to breathe,” Faith interjected from her place down the table back near Spike. “You can do it for a while, but eventually you have to give in, the pressure’s too much.”

“But you stopped,” Willow pointed out from the opposite side of the table. “In jail, you weren’t Slaying, right?”

Faith shrugged. “Yeah, well, not everyone’s as badass as I am,” she retorted haughtily.

“Or as psychotic,” Buffy muttered before turning back to Robin. “But, yeah, it’s kinda like that. I tried to stop once – and I did for a while – but it just finds you and pulls you back in.”

“It’s the dance,” Spike interjected. “Good and evil, magnet and steel, toast and bloody jam.”

“Vampires would be the toast, in that scenario,” Buffy clarified. “I’m the sweet, yummy jam.”

Spike snorted his disagreement and rolled his eyes. “Whichever Slayers are – which could be up for serious debate – death is the only way they ever stop dancin’.”

Buffy shrugged, sweeping her eyes over her friends. “Sometimes not even dying works,” she pointed out, before looking back at Robin with sympathy.  “Your mom probably tried to stop, too. I bet every Slayer has tried to stop at some point, if they live long enough, that is. It’s just … part of what we are at our very core.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t love everyone in this room, and it doesn’t mean your mom didn’t love you,” she explained. “It’s just something we have to do. The mission comes first.

“Which brings me back to Spike and my lack of time for your personal crusade,” Buffy continued. “Giles thinks you could be useful…”

“He’s actually already been rather useful tutoring the Potentials,” Giles interjected, finally taking his seat again at the other end of the table. “He does have experience in the art of inducing young people to comply with rules and order, and he’s got the skills to teach them basic defense and tactics. He certainly has experience with battling demons and vampires.”

“The girls seem to respect his authority,” Amanda put in on Robin’s behalf, as if she wasn’t one of those girls just a couple of days before.

“And, while he is not a Watcher, he is familiar with Slayers and the ways of our world. And we are woefully short on actual Watchers these days,” Giles continued.

“And the hot-for-teacher factor doesn’t hurt,” Anya pointed out. “I mean, if you’d had a Watcher that looked like him instead of Giles, wouldn’t you have been a little more gung-ho with the whole Chosen One gig?”

“Oh, dear Lord. Must everything revolve around wantonness and philandering with you?” Giles protested.

“She’s not wrong,” Buffy defended Anya, turning her intense, red eyes back on Robin. “But I’m not sure that’s a good thing. These are _girls_ … not women. They’re scared and confused. I won’t have them taken advantage of. They don’t need a boyfriend. They need a mentor, a teacher, someone they can count on.”

Robin held his hands up in surrender. “Whoa! Whatever faults I have, ‘pedophile’ isn’t one of them. I’m a teacher. I’m a damn good one, too. I can help … I want to help.”

“And your beef with Spike?” Buffy asked, her eyes locked on the big man’s, as if she could see into his soul.

Robin dropped his hands onto the table, spreading his fingers out wide, and took a deep breath before answering her. “It’s lived in me my whole life. Those feelings don’t just go away in the blink of an eye, but … I heard you. It won’t be an issue.”

Buffy held the man’s gaze for a few long moments, but then nodded. “Make sure it’s not. Because if I’ll toss the people I love into the line of fire, you don’t even want to know what I’ll do to you.”

Wood swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively, and nodded, breaking eye contact with the Slayer.  “I said it wouldn’t be a problem, and it won’t.”

Buffy took in a deep breath and let it out audibly before standing up and moving away from the man. The deep inhalation brought the aroma of the freshly baked croissants and muffins back to the forefront of her mind and she headed for them like she was on a mission from God.

“So, if you knew what was going on the whole time, why did you kick us out of the house? I mean, I understand me, but why Mr. Giles?” Robin asked as Buffy loaded up a plate with muffins and croissants, a bucket of butter, a barrel of jam, and poured herself a gallon of coffee to go with it.

“It was all part of the plan to try and keep people as safe as possible,” Giles answered for Buffy, who had her mouth full of chocolate chip muffin. “It was Spike’s idea, actually.”

 

**Flashback to the planning meeting, just before visiting the new Sunnydale High for the open house:**

Team-Slayer had gathered in the basement of Chez Summers after having contacted every resource they had – demonic or otherwise – in an attempt to get help stopping The First.  They sat in a circle, Giles at Buffy’s left and Dawn at her right. Spike, who was hurt and angry with Buffy for not telling her friends about their marriage vows and exchange of rings, which had happened four days ago, sat on the other side of the circle from her. He was literally as far away from her as he could get and still remain within the salt and magic barrier that Willow had laid around them on the floor for protection. Rounding out Team-Slayer were Willow and Tara, as well as Xander and Anya.

“So, what do we know?” Buffy asked the group in general without speaking aloud, communicating silently using Willow’s telepathy spell to keep anyone, specifically The First or its agents, from overhearing their plans.

“Lilith is amazing and totally on board!” Willow burst out before anyone else could say anything.

“Okay, great. What can she do?” Buffy wondered.

“What _can’t_ she do?” Willow gushed back.

“Take out The First? Stuff it back into the bowels of hell? Meeting adjourned?” Buffy suggested.

“Oh, well … no, I guess she can’t actually do that,” Willow deflated. “But she has some ideas that I think can help us defeat him.”

“Why do you assume The First is a ‘he’?” Giles wondered.

Willow shrugged. “Just seems like something a guy would do – the whole world domination thing,” she offered.

“Forgetting Glory, are we?” Giles pointed out.

“She was the exception that proves the rule,” Willow retorted. “The Master – man, Angelus – man, Adam – kind of a man, Warren –“

“Look, can we just get on with it? What bloody difference does it make? Pretty sure usin’ proper pronouns won’t win ya any bleedin’ points,” Spike groused angrily, just wanting to be out of there, away from Buffy, away from everyone, honestly.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Willow stammered, recovering herself. “Anyway, she was able to explain the magic The First used to implant that trigger spell in Spike, so we can take counter measures to…”

“You know how that works … you know how to defend against it happening again?” Buffy interrupted, ideas popping into her head like popcorn on high heat.

“Yeah, that’s what I just said,” Willow retorted. “We can…”

“Can you turn it around?” Buffy interrupted again, taking her eyes off Willow and shifting them to Spike, who sat next to the red witch. “Can we use Spike as our own weapon against The First?”

Spike met her gaze, his own eyes narrow, blue laser beams of resentment and anger shooting back at her.

“Oh, well, ummm … maybe?” Willow replied, her eyes darting between the two staring blondes. If looks could kill, she was sure they’d both be riding the ferry across the Styx right now.

“Not keen on bein’ used,” Spike said without breaking eye contact with Buffy. “But then, reckon you know that already … just don’t care.”

“Spike, this isn’t about …” Buffy sighed and closed her eyes, breaking the tense eye contact with Spike. She opened her eyes again, but couldn’t quite meet his cold, blue gaze.  “This is about The First, this is about him _… it_ … saying that it wasn’t done with you. You remember that, right? It tipped its hand, maybe we can use that to our advantage.

“If it tries to turn you against us, maybe we can turn you back on it,” Buffy explained.

“You do recall what it did t’ me, yeah?” he asked icily.

Buffy bit her lip and nodded, finally meeting his eyes again. “I do. I’m not saying it would be easy…”

“Oh! ‘ _Not easy’_ , is it?” Spike shot back, standing up abruptly. “How about ‘bloody torture’? How about it diggin’ its filthy claws into my soul and carving out bits? ‘Not easy’, she says …” Spike snorted derisively, crossing his arms over his chest in defiance.  “You try it and see how ‘ _not easy’_ it is.”

“Spike, you know I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I thought there was another way. I’ve got girls up there that The First is just itching to pick off, and heaven only knows how many more on their way here right now. It’s trying to end the fucking world! It’s not going to give up. And it’s only going to get stronger.

“Wouldn’t you like to get back at it for what it did to you? Turn the tables on it? Kick its ass like it did yours?” she challenged, standing up and taking a step toward the glowering vampire.

Spike pursed his lips, still scowling at her. “It’s a lot to ask, Slayer,” he said at last. “Maybe too much.”

Buffy nodded. “I know it’s a lot. But I know you’re strong enough to handle it. You’re the strongest warrior we have, Spike. I believe in you.”

“And you’re a bloody cold-hearted bitch,” he shot back, his lips still pursed angrily.

Buffy nodded again. “Pretty sure that’s not a sudden revelation to you.

“You could be the thing that tips the whole board in our favor, Spike. There’s a reason The First keeps targeting you, and it’s not because of your bubbly personality and infectious laugh. It’s because you’re strong. You’re a warrior. You’re a _champion_. You could be the difference between winning and losing this battle. Not just for us, for the _whole world_.”

“Manipulative fucking bitch,” Spike muttered aloud, glaring at her.

Buffy waited, not saying anything else, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. The two preternatural warriors stood there in the circle glowering at each other in silent battle for what seemed eons to the group surrounding them, easily entering into the realm of ‘Free Bird’ – the single version, not the live version.

Finally, Spike broke off the emotionally-charged connection, rolling his eyes disdainfully, before looking back at her.

“Fine, then,” he agreed, going back to the silent communication. “Do it. But don’t come cryin’ to me if I kill you.”

Buffy nodded, pressing her lips in a grim line. “Deal.”

Buffy looked at Willow then. “Get with Lilith and make it happen. But it has to be stealthy, The First can’t suspect anything or Spike’s dust. After The First digs its claws into Spike, I need to be able to easily kick it out when the time is right. And Spike can’t be able to remember all these plans while The First is in there, or it’ll just turn everything back against us.”

“No pressure or anything,” Willow muttered aloud, under her breath.

“Wall off m’ bloody soul, too,” Spike interjected using the silent communication. “It’s the weak link. Just need the worst o’ the demon, the bloodlust, fer it t’ muck about with. Think she can do that?”

Willow shrugged and nodded shakily, making hasty notes on the pad of paper she had in her lap. “I’m n-not sure, but we can talk to her,” she stammered slightly.

“Okay, what else can Lilith help with?” Buffy asked, resuming her seat at the same time Spike did across the circle from her.

“Well, she says she can provide wards to keep The First out. So, I thought we could maybe ward the house,” Willow suggested.

Buffy thought a moment, her brows furrowing, but then shook her head. “No, that would be too obvious. If it couldn’t get in here suddenly, it would know something was up and might start looking around for other things. We need somewhere else … a safe house. Somewhere big enough for all the girls that might show … I mean, that _will_ show up.

“Like Angel’s mansion,” she proposed, looking at the red witch. “I talked to him and he’s dealing with some stuff down there, too.”

“Related to The First?” Giles asked.

“Reply hazy, try again later,” Buffy answered in Magic 8 Ball lingo. “But he offered the mansion if we need it. He said he’d have Fred turn the utilities back on.”

“Off topic, but how does Angel afford to keep that place, plus a place in L.A, but Captain Peroxide here can’t find two nickels to rub together?” Xander wondered.

“I recall havin’ a few nickels jingling in that bloody check I gave Buffy. Seems to be keeping Twinkies in the cupboard and this bloody roof over your soon-to-be-cracked skull,” Spike shot back.

Buffy held up her hands, imploring them to stop. “Let’s just stay on the topic, okay?” she suggested to Xander.

“The bottom line is, if this place is compromised, we’ll have somewhere to go. We need to ward the mansion against the First and the Bringers … against anything without a soul. Then, if we get attacked here and separated, we meet there, okay?”

“Sure, but, getting the girls out of here and all the way across town without being slaughtered by Bringers?” Willow pointed out. “Not really loving the chances there, especially if you and Spike aren’t with us.”

“I might be able to help with that,” Anya offered. “As you know, D’Hoffryn is a master of realms, dimensions, opening portals and the like, and he’s willing to help. Turns out Vengeance Demons would be out of business without humans. Kinda takes the plump, juicy raisins out of our … errr … _their_ raison d'être.

“He could open a portal between here and the mansion … or here and just about anywhere, really. I vote for Bali,” she suggested raising her hand as if voting. “Anyone with me?”

Dawn, Xander, Willow, and Tara all raised their hands. Giles removed his glasses and began polishing them. Buffy rolled her eyes. Spike sighed impatiently, just wanting to get out of here.

“Okay, well, that’s a majority, vote carries,” Anya announced.

“Not a democracy, Anya,” Buffy informed her dryly. 

“All hail Buffy,” Spike groused.

“That’s right, all hail Buffy,” she agreed. “I’m the Slayer, not you guys. Someone has to make the hard decisions, and that someone is me. If you want to go to Bali, go now. No hard feelings. Otherwise, you’re on the Buffy Train into Danger Town, and it is leaving the station. Last chance to get off is now.”

Buffy looked around, but her friends had all lowered their gazes, shaking their heads, well, all except Spike. He met her eyes without flinching. He wasn’t thinking anything for Willow to broadcast to the group, but Buffy was sure she could hear him saying, ‘ _Promised you, didn’t I? Till the end of the world_. _Keep my promises, don’t I?_ ’ He might also be calling her a bitch again behind that frosty glare.

Buffy cleared her throat and looked away from him. “Fine, Anya, you work with your old boss on setting that up. Get a portal between the basement and the mansion,” the Slayer instructed her.

“Some pocket dimensions in the mansion might come in handy, too,” Willow suggested. “Just in case the wards fail, and we have to … run and hide.”

Anya nodded. “I’m all for running and hiding,” she agreed. “I’ll take care of it.”

“How will we know when to … run and hide?” Willow asked, looking at Buffy. “Maybe a signal?”

“Alas, Babylon,” Spike suggested immediately, drawing blank stares from most of the group. “Oh, please! Crack a book once in a while,” he told them derisively.

“ _’Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is thy judgment come’_ ," he quoted the bible. “Also, a short novel of the same name about a nuclear apocalypse. Words aren’t too big, reckon you lot could manage most of it.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Okay, that will be the signal, ‘Alas, Babylon,’” she agreed. “Anyone can give the signal if you think we’re about to be overrun here. Then just get out, go through the portal and stay put at the mansion until everyone can get there and we’ll regroup.

“Okay, what else?” Buffy asked, looking around.

“Lilith suggested a couple of other things that Tara and I want to work on,” Willow offered. “The first one is to create some amulets we can each wear so we can communicate silently, without me having to be around to be the focus. 

“The other is to embed a spell into the amulet, a stasis spell, that anyone can invoke with a few words of Latin. In case someone gets mortally wounded, it would put them in suspended animation until we could get help … within reason.”

“How long is ‘within reason’?” Buffy wondered.

“Like … an hour?” Willow suggested. “It would depend on the wound. But, the person would look dead … actually, they’d kinda be dead for a while.”

“Oh, wow, déjà vu all over again,” Buffy groaned, rolling her eyes.

“The First isn’t really keen on seeing you dead … yet,” Spike informed her.

Buffy exhaled a short, incredulous laugh. “Could’ve fooled me – he had you attack me more than once,” she reminded him.

“Oh, it won’t shed any crocodile tears if ya died, but it’d get its rocks off watching you suffer first,” he told her.

“Why am I not surprised?” Buffy replied dryly. “How did I get so lucky?”

“You’re a bloody abomination,” Spike informed her fervently, leaning forward in his seat and meeting her eyes. “A Slayer with friends and family. With a _team_ … All hail Buffy,” he continued.

“Taking all that away from you? That’s what makes evil creatures cream their jeans,” Spike advised her.

“Thank you for that visual,” Buffy retorted sarcastically.

“Who did Angelus go after? You?” Spike shook his head. “Your bloody _friends_.”

Buffy glared at Spike, her stomach knotting with the memory of what Angelus had done. Would The First do the same thing? Torture and kill her friends just to make her suffer?

“So, what are you suggesting, Spike?” Giles broke in, breaking the tense thread that had sprung up between The Slayer and the vampire.

Spike blinked and turned to look at the ex-Watcher, but then looked back at Buffy. “If ya want to keep people around you safe, you need to drive them away. If The First thinks they aren’t important to you, he won’t bother with ‘em.”

“And how would you propose she do that?” Giles asked.

Spike narrowed his eyes at Buffy and smirked. “Just be herself. The Chosen _One_. Comes natural to her, it does. To drive everyone away that gives a shit about her.”

“Hey! That’s not true!” Willow declared, defending Buffy.

“No, he’s right,” Buffy stopped her friend. “It is what comes naturally to me … to push everyone away. I have to fight to … not do it.”

Spike shrugged, vindicated, and sat back in his chair, his legs splayed out in front of him casually, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. “So, when ya get that urge, stop fightin’ it. Be yourself. Got enough practice with me, I reckon. Release the bloody Kraken.”

Buffy scowled at him and started to retort, but Giles stepped in, seeing her ire rise.  “Perhaps something less deadly than a mythical creature would be more useful,” he suggested reasonably. “If one of us sees an opportunity to do something that we know would likely upset you, then perhaps we take it.

“Then, you may get reasonably angry and send us off. That way it would not appear suspicious to The First, if it happens to be eavesdropping. We can go to the mansion and begin getting it in order in case of future need,” he added.

“Oh! Will there be a code for that, too?” Willow wondered, looking from Giles to Buffy.

A memory flashed in Buffy’s mind of her mom soon after finding out Buffy was the Slayer. Joyce was angry, hurt, and confused, but Buffy had no time for any of it right then – she had to kill the vampire she loved and stop him from ending the world.

_‘You walk out of this house, don't even_ think _about coming back!’_ her mother had told her in a moment of anger.

“I’ll tell you to get out and not come back,” Buffy offered. “If I say that, then go to the mansion.”

“What if you just tell us to go get fucked?” Anya wondered.

Buffy leveled a cool gaze on the ex-demon. “Then go get fucked, but stay in the house,” she replied reasonably.

“Oh. I can do that,” Anya agreed with a shrug.

“Okay, anything else?” Buffy asked, looking around.

“You best not let The First see these witches healin’ ya up. That’ll put them at the top of the bloody hit list,” Spike pointed out, waving a hand at the two witches next to him.

Buffy sighed and nodded. “Okay, unless someone is, like, totally dying, no healing spells,” she instructed the witches. “What else?”

“Regarding the annoying bundles of overwrought estrogen,” Spike continued, referring to the Potentials. “Talked to a few associates o’ mine and I think we can get them into town in a less deadly manner … underground.”

Buffy raised her brows, interested.

“By ‘associates’, I assume you mean demons?” Giles asked.

Spike grunted out a laugh and sat back up straight in his chair. “No, meant fairies, little folk, leprechauns and the like,” he replied sarcastically. “Of course, demons, ya nit. They owe me and they’re …”

“Good people,” Buffy filled in when he hesitated.

Everyone looked at her curiously.

She shrugged. “I know a lot of them. They’re nice, like … Clem and Ariel, just trying to get by, make a living, stay out of the line of fire.”

Spike nodded. “Right. Non-violent types, but they’re willing to help. They’d be second in line t’ go if The First takes over, right behind you lot. They can meet the girls on the outskirts, bring ‘em in through the tunnels and sewers.”

“What if the Bringers attack them there?” Giles wondered.

“Said non-violent, didn’t say defenseless,” Spike clarified. “Could lose some, but seems a better chance than having them walk into town alone on the main road with targets painted on their bloody backs.”

“Oh! We need another code word! Like a sign and countersign!” Willow suggested brightly. “Like … ummm … the girl could say, ‘ _I want to be loved by you, just you, and nobody else but you,’_ and the demon would reply, ‘ _I want to be loved by you, alone!_ ’ then the girl would say, ‘ _Boop boop be do’_.”

Everyone stared at the witch with looks ranging from amusement to disbelief to astonishment.

“Would they have to wiggle like Marilyn when they did it?” Anya wondered. “You know, all sex-kitten slinky?”

Willow shrugged, her lips quirking into a little frown. “It wouldn’t hurt, I guess,” she replied.

“Yeah, ummmm … thinking ‘no’ on the Marilyn Monroe revival, Will.” Buffy looked at Giles. “Maybe just tell them if the demons have eyes and don’t immediately kill them, then that’s the sign?”

Giles nodded. “I will attempt to relay that out to any operatives still alive and hopefully they can pass the information along.”

“Okay, anything else?” Buffy asked, looking around. Everyone shook their heads.

“Great, sounds like we’ve got some work to do … and thanks,” she offered, rubbing at her tired eyes. “In case it gets hazy at some point during this war: I love you all, I need you all. The only way we’re going to win this is together. I can’t do it alone.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

**Back to the current day in the conference room:**

“So, that argument with Willow and Tara was just part of the plan,” Amanda observed, feeling relieved.

“Yeah, well … mostly,” Buffy said, looking across the table at Willow. “I assume you got that slippery soul tucked back into our friend?”

Willow nodded. “And got Faith in the deal,” she explained. “Seemed like a good trade, plus Faith got to die instead of you for a change!”

“Thanks so much for that,” Faith groused. “You could’ve let me in on that part of the plan.”

“That wasn’t actually in the plan,” Buffy admitted. “Just a happy accident.”

“Accidents happen when you run your car off the road trying to avoid a moose,” Faith observed, looking down the table at Spike where he now sat next to Buffy, having sent Wood back to his place next to Giles. “Not when someone drives a stake through your chest.”

Spike shrugged nonchalantly. “Reckon that counts as m’ third Slayer,” he announced, smirking cockily.

“Not amusing,” Robin stated acerbically, glowering at Spike.

Spike narrowed his eyes at the man. “Not meant t’ be. Just a fact, _mate,_ ” Spike shot back, purposely emphasizing the word ‘mate’ just to annoy the principal.

“Is it just me,” Xander asked, breaking the sudden thread of renewed tension in the room, “or does anyone else think that maybe someone should nail Angel’s soul in place?”

“I thought ‘nailing’ was what made him lose it,” Anya observed, confused.

“I vote we attach it with wooden stakes,” Spike suggested dryly.

“Oh! I offer my full and enthusiastic support for that plan,” Xander agreed, leaning forward and looking down the table at Spike.  Spike lifted the bottle of rum toward the other man in a toast and took a long, deep swallow of the potent potable.

Buffy cleared her throat and rolled her eyes. “I’m so glad you two are becoming such great friends,” she groaned sarcastically.

“Enemy of my enemy and all that rot,” Spike pointed out with a smirk.

“You know, one of these days I’m just going to put you and Angel in a room and let you fight it out,” Buffy informed her husband.

“No problem at this end,” Spike agreed.

“Welcome to Thunderdome, two vampires enter, one vampire leaves,” Xander announced boldly.

“There could be oil of some kind involved…” Buffy added wistfully.

“And gratuitous nudity?” Anya suggested. “Oil without lots of skin is just a waste of petroleum products. Lots of dinosaurs gave their lives for that. We shouldn’t squander it.”

Buffy nodded thoughtfully. “Excellent point.”

“I call dibs on fighting the winner,” Faith declared.

“Get in line, toots,” Buffy snapped back at the other Slayer. “I was here first.”

“Oi! Starting to feel like I’m bein’ sexually objectified here,” Spike complained. “Is this a fight or just a slippery orgy t’ satisfy your fetish for cold, hard flesh?”

“Both?” Buffy asked shrugging. “Why not both?”

“You people are … _deranged_ ,” Wood declared derisively.

“It’s simply their way of managing stress – meaningless prattle,” Giles explained, sighing as he removed his glasses and began polishing them.

Buffy looked over at Giles, a haughty expression on her face. “Just for that, _you_ are _not_ invited.”

“There apparently is a God, after all,” Giles sighed thankfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it’s not clear, the banner is mostly depicting the flashback to the meeting. Buffy is still demony in the current day.
> 
> I hope that cleared up a lot of the mystery of their plan? If you look back, just about anywhere you see Buffy with a Scooby after they get the communication amulets, and she crosses her arms, it’s because she’s saying something to them silently. I know it’s not much of a tell, but if I made it too obvious, then it would’ve given the game away. Also, places with ‘long silences’ usually mean something was being said between them that no one else could hear. 
> 
> I hope I didn’t miss anything. It took a LOT of back and forth between the plan and the action and conversations going on, so I apologize if anything got missed!
> 
> It also puts Buffy and Spike’s convo before he was taken into a new light:  
> \-----  
> “There are no coincidences, you know that, right?” Buffy asked him. “We’re both gonna need to do our parts to defeat The First. No matter what that means, no matter what it takes, no matter how much it hurts or how hard it is. That’s got to be the reason we’re both here now.
> 
> “Can you do it?” she asked somberly.
> 
> Spike looked down at the floor, breaking eye contact with her, his hands on his hips, lips pursed, and nodded. “I know, luv. No matter what it takes, I can do it,” he assured her, a lump forming in his throat.   
> \------------  
> We will have a small respite now before diving back into action, so you can breathe freely for a chapter or two! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are the everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
> 
> Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! She is so damn talented!!


	79. Dogs and Sprogs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The respite from angst continues. A dream carries Spike away to an idyllic future, renewing his hope that they will both survive the coming war.

* * *

 

The day seemed interminable, but it was finally done. At least Buffy had declared it done, whether anyone else agreed with her or not. She found Spike hiding out in the garage. Well, he said he was ostensibly fixing the car, but since there were only two wires that had been cut and needed fixing, Buffy wasn’t sure how that took three hours.

“Did you know you have a really nice ass?” she asked him, leaning on the doorjamb between the kitchen and garage as she surveyed said ass.  He had the hood of the car up and was leaning over the engine, fiddling with some of the mysterious workings within.

“Oh! Thank you for noticing!” Andrew’s voice came from the kitchen behind her, making Buffy turn and look.

“I’ve been doing the six-week Spiderman Booty Building Challenge,” he revealed proudly, turning his ass this way then that, preening like a peacock. “It’s been really hard – you actually have to _do_ _stuff_ – but totally worth it.”

Buffy rolled her eyes as a small shudder ran down her spine. “Maybe you should try climbing up the side of a very tall building and let me know how that works out for you,” she suggested brightly, turning back to the actual ass she’d been referring to.

“Do I, then?” Spike replied nonchalantly, standing up and wiping his hands on a rag as he turned to face her. “Any other bits catch your eye?”

“Oh, so many bits,” Buffy admitted, stepping up to him and wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his.

“Could ya do a bloke a favor and be more specific?” Spike requested, resting his hands on her hips as he looked down at her. It was still a bit of an adjustment looking down into her leopard painted face and red, glittering eyes, but he was happy to make the adjustment to have her in his arms.

“Well, for one, your eyes are an amazing blue, and I love how I can read every emotion in them,” she began.

“Can ya, then? And what are you readin’ in them now?” he wondered.

“Hmmm, well, I’m reading that you’re irritated with Andrew for trying to help you with Betty. You’re annoyed with Faith for cutting the wires too close to the doohickey and making it harder to fix. You’re tired of hearing girls giggle and start whispering about oily orgies every time you walk by the rec room. You’re a little disappointed that Wood didn’t come at you again so you could beat his ass, just for fun. And, I’m pretty sure you’re horny and ready to go to bed,” she listed brightly.

Spike’s brows rose higher and higher as she spoke, ending up nearly at his hairline. “All that from m’ eyes, is it?”

Buffy shrugged. “Well, I might’ve heard you yelling at Andrew to get the fuck out of the garage with his grubby nerd paws and to stop calling Betty ‘Darth Vader’. And then, later, I heard you lecturing Faith on the proper way to hotwire a car, and I, personally, got tired of hearing the girls giggling and whispering whenever you walked by. As far as Wood … call that Slayer intuition.”

“And the horny bit?” Spike asked, arching a brow at her.

“Well, let’s just say I don’t think you have any tools your pocket,” she teased, pressing and wriggling her hips harder against his.

Spike bit his bottom lip, his eyes gleaming with avarice. “Oh, I’ve got a tool, pet, but it ain’t for the car.”

“Oooo … well, I wonder what it might be good for,” she joked before lifting up on tiptoes to capture his lips in a slow, deep kiss.

Spike moaned against her mouth and cupped her ass in his hands, pulling her body tighter against his growing tool. Their tongues swirled together in a tantalizing dance that made Buffy’s heart race and her body tingle in anticipation of getting him alone.

“Let’s go,” she whispered against his mouth as the kiss broke, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the kitchen.

“Hang on, pet, just a mo’,” he requested, pulling his hand free of hers. He closed the hood of the car and wiped away any oil and fingerprints from the paint around the area where he’d been working.

Buffy shook her head in disbelief, but was still smiling when she said, “I guess I know where I rate … one below Betty.”

Spike shrugged, tossing the rag into the corner of the garage as he came back to join her. “Well, when you’ve been m’ girl for as long as she has, then maybe we’ll reevaluate yer status, luv.”

Buffy laughed as they headed back into the kitchen, where Andrew was trying to see the reflection of his ass in one of the windows. She ignored the little nerd and kept walking, still talking to Spike. “Well, I appreciate that. Just how long do I have to put up with you for that honor?”

Spike sniffed, closing the door behind him as he followed her. “Be six years this August with Betty.”

“Wow, that long, huh? I don’t know, Spike … that’s a lot to ask,” Buffy teased. “Do I get to start counting from our ‘first dance’, when you crashed the open house at the school?”

“No bloody way, Slayer.”

“Oh, then from Thanksgiving back when…”

“Nuh-uh.”

 “Oh! I know, from when we got engaged at Giles’ when …”

“Nope. Counting started when ya put on that ring,” he informed her flatly, pointing to the plain, silver band on her left ring finger.

Buffy twisted her face up into a grimace. “You are a monster,” she informed him scornfully as they made their way upstairs.

“Vampire, remember? Evil,” he retorted dryly. “Not sure why you lot have such a hard time remembering that.”

“It must be your sweet ass, just keeps us all distracted from your evilness,” Buffy suggested.

Spike’s brows went up and he looked back down the stairs where Giles was speaking to Xander and Anya. “Think yer Watcher and the git have a thing for my sweet arse?”

“Oh, definitely,” Buffy assured him seriously as they reached the door with the ‘Mr. and Mrs. Summers’ sign on it. “But don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

“Ta ever so,” Spike retorted, a little shudder of nausea quavering in his stomach.

Just as Buffy reached out to open the door to their room, Giles called out to them and motioned for them to come back down stairs.

“Can we pretend we didn’t hear that?” Buffy wondered, sighing.

Spike pursed his lips, glowering down at Giles, who just motioned again for them to come back down, unperturbed by Spike’s scowl. “Bloody wanker,” he groaned, rolling his eyes and turning to head back downstairs.

“Spike,” Giles greeted him. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I do have a condition that requires your attention.”

Spike’s brows went up and he dropped his eyes to the front of Giles’ trousers. “Thought you were datin’ the principal. Wouldn’t want to step on any toes, Watcher. Reckon he can handle whatever … _condition_ you’ve got there,” he taunted.

“Oh, yes, very clever,” Giles groaned, giving Spike a scowl of his own.

“The demons you enlisted to assist us are getting rather uneasy. They are anxious to take their leave of Sunnydale, but said you had promised them some recompenses for their services, a relocation allotment? They would like to collect on that before you … errr … ‘incinerate in the pit of hell because you’re too wrapped around the Slayer’s little finger to realize it’s time to flee’.

“Their words, not mine,” Giles added hastily, giving Spike a dry smile.

Spike’s brows went up. “Wrapped around her finger, is it?” he repeated, scathingly. “I’ll wrap their faces around my bloody fist—”

“How long has it been since a new Potential showed up?” Buffy wondered, cutting Spike off.

“The last one was three days ago,” Giles answered her. “It does seem that their services may no longer be required, given the circumstances.”

Buffy nodded and looked up at Spike. “You should probably just pay them and let them go,” she agreed.

“Brilliant. What about _my_ condition, then?” he complained.

Buffy bit her bottom lip, smiling at him seductively. “I’ll take care of it when you get back.”

“This hero act is bloody inconvenient, if ya ask me,” he grumbled.

“They’re waiting for you in the basement,” Giles informed him smugly.

“Ta ever so,” Spike snarked at him before turning and heading for the stairs.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

It had taken Spike longer than he’d hoped to get the demons who had been helping them smuggle the Potentials into Sunnydale paid what he’d promised them and sent on their way. Much longer. Much, _much_ longer.

He’d had to make a run to his crypt to get enough cash to pay them, as everyone in the mansion could only come up with thirty-two dollars and twenty-eight cents collectively, and the ATMs in town had run out of money long ago. Despite his reputation for always being broke, he did keep a bit of currency on hand for emergencies. Luckily, most of it was American dollars rather than rupees.

While he was there, he packed up a few things, like his toy chest, all the good booze, and some clothes, and loaded it all into the DeSoto. Ariel and Tobias were heading down to L.A. with their families, and they agreed to take the Desoto down there to safety … he hoped. He wondered how someone so short could even see over the dashboard to drive or reach the pedals, but they’d assured him that they were ‘excellent drivers’. It was all he could do to keep from calling Tobias ‘Rain Man’.

On the plus side, Ariel had managed to get his duster cleaned up again and returned it to him before they left. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Robin’s face when he came in to the next meeting wearing it. Maybe the dolt would come at him again, after all.

Also on the plus side, no Bringers or even apparitions appeared to attack or annoy him the whole time he’d been outside the mansion’s protective wards. Maybe they had dealt a serious blow to The First’s army, after all.

Finally, he’d gotten all the demons paid and reluctantly said goodbye to Betty, praying she’d at least be safe from the coming war, which was fast approaching. Buffy had another plan, which involved going toe-to-toe with The First’s army of subterranean uber-vamps. At least this time he would be fighting beside her, not as a double-agent getting his chain yanked by the great, incorporeal git.

Finally back at the mansion, Spike opened the door to their room and stepped into the dimly-lit foyer, looking forward to a long, passionate night with Buffy.  He closed the door and headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, making a beeline for the bedroom, but when he got there, he found it empty.

He frowned, looking over to the bathroom, but it was also dark, quiet and empty. He headed back downstairs, thinking she might be in the kitchen getting a snack. He spotted her when he got to the bottom of the stairs, curled up fast asleep on the couch in her bathrobe.

Spike sighed, standing over her with his hands on his hips. So much for his grand plans for the night. Still, he couldn’t stop the small smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. She looked like an angel sleeping there. Even with the leopard spots and fangs, her face was completely tranquil in innocent repose. She looked as if she had never touched the darkness, never suffered heartbreak, never had the fate of the world literally on her shoulders.  

He wished he could make that so. He’d give pieces of his soul if he could take away the pain and darkness and leave only happiness and light in her life – in fact, he HAD given pieces of his soul for that very cause. But he couldn’t take it all off her shoulders. She had been Chosen. All he could do now was help her bear it, help her navigate the darkness, help her survive whatever came next.

Spike bent down and slipped one arm beneath her knees and the other under her shoulders, lifting her up into his arms like a child. She sighed and moaned sleepily, half-waking and turning into him, her dark hair falling over her face.

“You’re home…” she muttered groggily, not opening her eyes.

“I am, pet,” he assured her as he started up the stairs.

“Waited up,” she mumbled against him as a yawn escaped her lips.

“’Preciate it, luv,” he replied, making it to the bedroom. He laid her down gently on the bed, then pulled the robe off her soft, warm body, before covering her with the thick comforter.

“Just five more minutes,” she requested sleepily as she curled up under the covers onto her side, snuggling down into them like a bear preparing for hibernation.

Spike touched a soft kiss against her temple. “Gonna get a shower, luv. You sleep, yeah?” he whispered against her ear.

Buffy sighed out a long, contented breath and nodded against the pillow. “K,” she agreed, her face and body relaxing back into that state of innocence only sleep can conjure.

After showering, Spike slid beneath the covers with her, curling around her warmth, spooning against her back. She fit against him perfectly, every supple curve a seamless counterpart to his hard lines. Her heart beat a slow, mesmerizing rhythm against his chest as he pressed against her back, soothing and peaceful. Her hushed, steady breath washed over him like a lullaby, coaxing him towards sleep. Buffy’s hand found his in the dark, her fingers slipping between his as she pulled it against her chest, snuggling back against him with a soft sigh.

“Love you, Spike,” she murmured in a sleep-slurred voice, squeezing his hand a little tighter before relaxing again in his arms.

“Love you, too, Slayer. Even if ya do fall asleep on me,” he whispered against her, touching a cool kiss to her shoulder, before letting her pull him into the gentle dance of dreams ....

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Again! Daddy! Again!” the little girl squealed in delight, her small, bare feet bouncing up and down in the soft, warm sand, as she reached her arms up toward her father. The girl’s green eyes glimmered with excitement in the bright sun and her long, thick, brunette hair billowed gently in the ocean breeze as she pled with him to toss her into the air again.

“Sound like yer mum, you do,” Spike teased, reaching down to pluck her up again and toss her over his head. “Bloody insatiable, the lot of you.”

“AGAIN!” the girl squeaked when he caught her, and Spike tossed her up again, letting her fly free above his head a moment as she giggled and shrieked.

“AGAIN!” she demanded giddily when he caught her once more in his strong, sure hands.

“Oh, bloody hell!” he complained, setting her back on her feet, much to her chagrin. “Wearing your old man out, you are. I’m old … gotta give me time t’ recover, sweet pea.”

“How old are you, Daddy?” she asked breathlessly, looking up at him, her big, green eyes gleaming.

“Well, let’s see now,” Spike pondered as he re-tied the string holding his blue swim trunks up. “A hundred and …”

“You’re thirty,” Buffy interrupted him from where she lounged in a beach chair behind him. She was wearing a white bikini, her body covered in coconut-scented suntan lotion, her blonde hair tied up off her shoulders in a messy bun. “It says so on your driver’s license.”

“Ah, see … yer mum knows. Thirty. Bloody ancient, that is,” Spike informed her, looking at the girl gravely as he dusted some sand off his chest and shoulders that had stuck to him when he’d tossed her in the air. “How old are you?”

“SIX!” she replied immediately, holding up six fingers to demonstrate.

“Bloody brilliant you are, too. Didn’t even have to check yer driver’s license,” he teased as he dropped down to sit on the blanket they had spread out over the sand next to Buffy’s chair. “And how old’s yer brother?”

“Four,” she answered. “He’s just a baby,” she added confidentially.

“AM NOT!” the boy argued from his place beneath the big umbrella which was shading him and Buffy from the mid-day sun. “I’m a big boy! Daddy said so.”

“I’m in _school_ ,” the girl taunted, wrinkling her nose in disdain as she sat down in the sand next to the blanket, not far from her father. “You’re too little for school.”

“Mommy! When can I go to school?” the little boy asked, looking up at Buffy with wide, hopeful, blue eyes. Even in the shade of the umbrella, his cottony, blonde curls shone, framing an angelic face like a halo.

“Kindergarten is next year, Billy,” Buffy assured him. She looked over at Spike, who had laid back on the blanket, arms folded behind his head, eyes closed, soaking up the warm, tingling rays.

“You know they get this from you, don’t you?” Buffy accused, reaching one foot out from under the shade of the umbrella and nudging Spike’s bare, tan leg.

“Their brilliant minds?” he retorted, opening one eye and looking up at her. “Yeah, know that, luv.”

“Noooo … this need to always be on top,” she clarified.

Spike opened the other eye, shielding his face from the sun with one hand as he looked up at her. “As I recall, you were on top last night, pet,” he smirked, running a salacious tongue over his teeth.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “This competitiveness. That’s your doing.”

“ _Pffft_!” Spike spat, turning on his side to look at her, propping his head in one hand. “Annie, luv, who said, ‘last one in is a rotten egg’, dropped all the gear, leaving it for us t’ carry, and took off runnin’ as soon as we hit the sand?”

“Mommy did,” the girl replied.

“And who challenged me to a race down the beach and tripped me the moment you said, ‘go’?”

“Mommy did,” Annie supplied helpfully.

“And who was it that…”

“Alright, alright!” Buffy stopped him, holding her hands up. “But, Billy, who is it that we caught cheating at Uno?”

“Daddy!” the little boy declared gleefully.

“And who was it that got a $450 ticket last month for racing Betty against some teenagers in a Camaro on Main Street?”

“Daddy!”

“I won that, by the way,” Spike sniffed.

Buffy rolled her eyes and laughed. “Your fault …” she contended again, arching an accusatory brow at him.

Spike bit his bottom lip, the corners of his mouth curving into a small smile. “Got an idea. Why don’t we ‘ave another and see whose fault it is. If it’s a girl, it’s your fault; if it’s a lad, it’s mine.”

“You are out of your mind,” Buffy retorted, trying to sound offended but not really succeeding as amusement danced in her green eyes.

“Am I, then?” Spike asked, reaching out with one hand and yanking Buffy down off the lounge chair and onto the blanket below.

The Slayer squeaked in surprise, barely avoiding knocking her drink over, as she rolled off the chair and landed on her back with a soft thud on the blanket next to her husband.

Spike rolled atop her, pinning her hips down with his. He grabbed her hands, interlocking their fingers and held them up above her head before touching a slow, gentle kiss to her mouth, nipping and sucking tenderly against her Hawaiian Tropic, coconut-flavored lips.

“Daadddy! Ewwww!” Annie moaned from behind them.

“Yucky!” Billy agreed from the other side, wrinkling his nose up in disgust.

“Yeah, Spike … ewwww,” Buffy teased, laughing against his mouth. “You are so gross … and you have cooties!”

“Got ‘em all from you,” Spike accused, his blue eyes dancing with delight. He released Buffy’s hands and reached an arm out, scooping their daughter up and pulling her into his strong arms, tickling her sides and making her squeal in laughter.  Then Billy jumped into the mix, climbing up on Spike’s back and tugging on his father’s neck, trying to get him to release Annie. In a moment all four of them were laughing and wrestling around on the blanket and in the sand, tickling each other and rolling around in hysterics. 

The big umbrella that had been stuck in the sand fell down in the melee, crashing into Buffy’s chair with a clatter. They all stopped abruptly and looked up for just a moment, but no longer, before the chaos began again.

Finally, they all seemed to give out at once, flopping back onto the sand – the blanket having been buried in the tumult.

The Summers family’s arms and legs were strewn askew, their bodies lying this way and that, each of them partially atop another like a tangle of Pick-up Sticks. They were all breathing hard, burbles of laughter rising up now and then as they recovered from the fracas. The bright, glowing sun shone down on them, bathing them all in warmth, but it was nothing compared to the warmth that lived within: the warmth of love and devotion that suffused all their hearts.

And then it was suddenly night, and Spike and Buffy were alone on the blanket under a sky filled with a billion twinkling stars. She rolled astride him and kissed him, her hips undulating slowly over his growing hardness within his swim trunks. The sand beneath them was still warm from the sun, but the salty breeze coming off the ocean was cool. Goose flesh tingled Spike’s skin, racing up and down his body in waves as Buffy’s tongue danced a slow, sensual samba with his. His hands slid up and down her body from knee, up to hip, and up further, following her curves like a gently winding road.

“Spike…” she murmured against his mouth. “Let’s make a baby, right here, under the stars.”

Spike pressed her shoulders back so he could gaze into her eyes in the moonlight. “Do ya mean it?”

Buffy smiled down on him and nodded, her eyes glittering in the soft light. 

“Oh, Buffy,” he gushed, pulling her body down against his sandy chest and capturing her lips in a fervent kiss.

“Love you so much, kitten, so bloody much,” he swore when the kiss broke.

“I love you too, Spike,” she replied, reaching up to untie the string holding her bikini top in place, still looking down on him in the moonlight. 

“Are you talking to me?

“Spike?

“Are you dreaming or awake?

“Spike?”

Spike jumped, as if woken from a dream of falling, his eyes flashing open in an instant.

“You okay, baby?” Buffy asked softly, laying a comforting hand on his chest.

He blinked, shaking his head a moment as he lifted up onto one elbow, reorienting, before focusing on her. The glittering flakes of gold in her eyes seemed to glow against her scarlet irises in the dark of the room, almost like twinkling, golden stars.

“Yeah, sorry, just a dream, I reckon,” he assured her, taking her hand in his and squeezing reassuringly.

“Must have been a pretty good one,” Buffy teased, dropping her gaze down to the tent in the sheets. “I better have been your co-star.”

A smirk stretched the sinfully sensuous curve of his mouth and he slid her hand down his body to press against his stiffy. “Always, luv,” he assured her, his voice deep and rich.

Buffy wrapped her fingers around his cock and began stroking gently up and down the length, relishing the feel of the soft skin moving smoothly over the rod of steel beneath.

“I think there was something I had promised to take care of earlier … what was that again?” she teased, swirling her thumb over the pearl of precum that had leaked from his cum slit.

A low growl of desire rumbled from Spike’s chest and he flung the comforter out of the way, leaving it in a heap behind him on the bed.

“Turn over, and I’ll remind ya what that was,” he rasped, pressing on one shoulder, urging her to comply.

“Ooooo … I love reminders,” she cooed, complying with his request and turning over on hands and knees, facing away from him.

Spike’s hands gripped her hips in the next moment, his hard cock slipping between her thighs, raking over her sensitive opening and teasing her clit. He pumped against her, his body slapping gently against the round globes of her ass, tantalizing her hot, soft flesh with the promise of his cock deep inside her.  

Buffy moaned in pleasure, finding his rhythm and swaying back and forth with him as her desire grew to match his. Her slick, hot cream flowed out, coating his cock with her lust, with her need for him. He slipped one hand around, cupping her breast gently, feeling the weight of it sway seductively as she moved. Spike teased her nipple with his fingers, his touch as silky as a feather against her skin, pulling more moans of longing from her throat.

“Tell me you want me,” Spike rasped, his lust burgeoning to the very limit of his ability to control as he continued the seduction, thrusting against her.  His cock glided smoothly between her folds, stroking her clit with each press and pull of his hips, drawing soft moans and gasps of pleasure from Buffy.

“I want you. God, I want you,” Buffy purred in a throating whisper.

“Tell me you love me,” he pled next, his own voice guttural and full of longing.

“I love you … Love you so much, Spike,” she eagerly obliged, her skin flushing beneath his touch, her clit throbbing, her channel pulsing in need of him.

The next growl that rumbled from Spike was primal and fierce, and it sent quivering chills up and down Buffy’s spine. Her whole body felt it, all the way to her core, and a rapturous shiver ran through her in anticipation.

“Spike … please,” she begged, pushing back against him now harder, her body demanding, yearning.

Spike’s hand gave her tit one last, hard squeeze, then slipped around her ribcage to the middle of her back and pressed down hard. Her ass raised higher, her sweet, wet quim yearning to be fucked, as her chest and face melted into the soft mattress. 

And then he was pressing into her – cold, hard steel meeting strong, supple heat.  That first moment of connection when he slipped inside her channel sent waves of pleasure rippling out over both of them. That simple act, that singularly blissful moment when they were no longer two, but one, never failed to drown them both in pure, intoxicating euphoria. Eyelids fluttered and closed, soft gasps passed over parted lips, the world stopped spinning in that one perfect moment.  Rapture swirled around their minds like watercolors in the rain, mixing and mingling into shapes and colors that could be conjured by nothing less than pure magic.

When Spike began to move again it was in slow, short, tantalizing strokes, teasing her sensitive opening with his swollen glans, making her moan and squirm in pleasure.

“Feel so good, Buffy … so fucking good,” he murmured, running his hands down from her hips to the curve of her tight waist then over her ribcage up to her shoulders and back again.

“So beautiful, always want to be touching you,” Spike rasped as he savored the feel of her flushed skin against his palms and beneath his fingertips. Droplets of perspiration prickled her body, letting his hands slide smoothly over her silken skin. He slowly explored every dimple, every hard muscle, every bump of bone, and every curve of soft flesh with his hands as his hips thrust gently into her, nearly pulling out, then pressing back in again.

“God, Spike … please … need you inside me … deeper, baby, please,” she rasped, getting lost in all the sensations he was pouring over her, from the sound of his voice, to the feel of his hands, to the short, teasing strokes of his cock.

Spike sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, pressing in deeper, opening her supple channel to his girth, as her words fanned the primal fire deep inside him. His cock tugged at the sensitive skin of her tight opening as he pushed in deeper, sending more sparks of bliss quivering through Buffy. The walls of her channel clung to every bump and engorged vein of his shaft, rippling in desire around his length. She welcomed his hardness into her core, wrapping his cock in rapture, taking him deeper, inch by tantalizing inch.

Buffy slid a hand down between her legs and fondled his balls. The smooth orbs constricted beneath her gentle touch, sending a quiver of pleasure vibrating through his abdomen and down his legs.

“Fuuuck … Buffy,” Spike groaned in pleasure as she fanned that fire even higher. His hands slid back to her hips and tightened their hold, his fingers digging into her soft flesh painfully. With the fire she’d stoked burning in his gut, he pulled back and slammed forward, yanking her hips back at the same time, driving his cock into her with vampire force.

“YES!” Buffy exclaimed, urging him on, as her body shook with the bone-rattling blow, her pussy clutching around his cock as if trying to truly make him one with her.

And then Spike was thrusting into her with a primal, insatiable need, his hips slapping against her ass with each plunge forward.  Wordless cries and gasps of pleasure were driven from Buffy’s lips as he pounded into her, his cock banging against her cervix, wild and demanding.  

“Yes! Yes! Fuck … Spike! More! Harder!” she demanded as her fingers slid to her slick clit and began stroking her swollen nub, intensifying her pleasure exponentially.

Spike snarled a long, guttural cry of expletives, slamming into her tight, slippery quim with brute force, taking all she had to give and perhaps just a little more. The power of every thrust forward was intensified by him jerking her ass back, making the ensuing collision something akin to two speeding trains meeting head on. The muscles of his arms bulged with the effort, every muscle and sinew standing out taught and lithe as he yanked her back, impaling her on his driving cock. The swell of his ass tightened with each surge forward, jerking hard when her soft flesh met his flat, tight stomach, plowing just that much deeper into her with every fierce stroke.

Buffy shook and convulsed under him. Torrents of pleasure mingled deliciously with short bursts of pain as his cock slammed against her cervix with each powerful jerk of his hips. As only he could, Spike lifted her up toward the razor’s edge of unbearable, torturous, rapturous bliss. She could only gasp and shriek now, words completely lost to her, as she found the peak of the mountain, high above the world. She hovered there, neither soaring nor falling, but floating on that edge between worlds, Spike seeming to know exactly how to suspend her in that heavenly cloud of euphoria.

How long could she drift here in this sea of pleasure? She desperately wanted to explode in a burst of unbridled rapture and float back to earth like a feather drifting in the wind, but she also wanted nothing more than to stay right here, floating free at the top of the world for all eternity.

“Cum, Buffy … cum for me … fall, luv … fuck … Buffy … fuccccckkkkkkkkk!” Spike begged, as the last vestiges of his control were wrested from him by her pussy wrapping around his cock like a vise, while her body spasmed and jerked against him. She was an angel. She was a devil. She was like no one he’d ever known before – his equal in all things. She demanded everything from him and gave him everything in return. She could unravel him in ways he never knew existed, tangling him in webs of agonizing bliss he had no desire to ever escape. And he was unraveling now like a primal, savage force of nature which could not be tamed.

Spike thrust his cock into her burning depths hard and deep as his balls constricted and his hips jerked wildly against her, completely out of his control. He leaned over her, pressing his hard chest against her flushed back and slid one hand off her hip, following the crease of her leg to her slick, burning center. His hand closed over hers there and stroked madly against her clit with her slick fingers, which had stopped functioning some time ago.

Fireballs of bliss burst out from her throbbing bundle of nerves, rocketing through her veins and exploding in a symphony of colorful fireworks behind her eyelids. His desperate words for her to fall had nudged her to the very edge of the mountain; his hips jerking madly against her had sent her falling, but his hand over hers, stroking her clit, had sent her screaming into the stratosphere.

Spike’s cool, thick jizz erupted from his balls like a volcanic explosion, swelling his cock with pulse after pulse of rapturous release, filling her with his passion. His deep, rumbling growl of completion combined with her piercing scream, as he joined her floating in the vibrant colors that ebbed and flowed beyond the lunatic fringe. Their spirits joined there – coming together gently, then parting, swirling in a never-ending dance of pure rapture. Their euphoric spirits mingled into colors that didn’t exist on Earth, brilliant and sparkling – the vivid hues found only in heaven.

Buffy’s body melted slowly into the soft mattress. Her thighs were suddenly weak, spasming with the intensity of her climax, and they simply slid out from under her, leaving her sprawled bonelessly on the bed. Spike followed her down, his body coming to rest atop her back as the aftershocks trembled through their hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. His hand was trapped between the mattress and her pussy, still holding her hand there intimately. Their combined cum seeped from her warm body, coating his fingers, pooling in his palm, the sensation of it sending more shivers of bliss rippling over him.

He could feel her heart pounding like a jackhammer through her back, thudding against his chest almost as if his own heart were beating. He lost himself in the feeling, in her warmth, in her racing heart, in the thin layer of perspiration that coated her skin, in the warm juices that slipped slowly from her depths. He never thought a vampire had any chance of finding heaven, but he had, and it was right here in the woman he loved.

“Love you so much, Buffy. Words … not enough words t’ tell ya how much,” he murmured against her neck, nuzzling through her raven tresses to find her soft skin with his lips. “Mine,” he whispered against her heated skin. “Mine.”

Buffy lifted her free hand up and touched it gently to the back of his neck, moaning in pleasure as the waves of euphoric release continued to ripple gently through her. “Love you too, baby … infinity … mine,” she mumbled dazedly, her voice slurring almost drunkenly.

Spike smiled against her hot skin, kissing and suckling her neck gently, feeling the shivering aftershocks of pleasure running through her body beneath him. Her pussy still throbbed gently around his cock, her body burning like a fire against him, heating him all the way to his bones.

The heat of her brought his dream back to him in full color. She was his sun, shining brightly, heating him, tingling his skin with her glowing warmth. He sighed contentedly, his cool breath raising goosepimples on her hot skin and sending a shiver down her spine.

Without moving off her, Spike groped out over the bed with his one free hand and finally found the corner of the discarded comforter. He pulled it over them as best he could and snuggled back down atop her, letting another soft sigh of contentment fall from his lips.

“Ask ya a question, luv?” he whispered after a few minutes of contented silence.

“Anything,” Buffy replied groggily.

“Ya ever think about havin’ sprogs of your own?”

Buffy’s body tensed a bit under him before she answered, “Slayers and kids are unmixy. You know that … just ask Robin Wood.”

“That’s not an answer, pet,” he insisted softly.

Buffy sighed heavily, buying time. The arm that was trapped under her body was starting to tingle and ache, so she rolled gently to the other side, freeing it, taking Spike with her. They both ended up on their sides, just as they had started the night, him spooning snugly against her back. Their fingers were entwined and glued together where their juices had dried on their skin.  Neither of them even tried to pull them apart. Buffy bent her elbow to relieve the ache that had started there and nestled their hands, still firmly clasped together, against her chest before answering.

“I used to think about it,” she admitted in the dark. “But I can barely keep Dawn away from the dangers of my life. How could I do it with little kids, with babies?”

“If ya could, would you?” Spike wondered, his voice a low rumble right against her ear.

Buffy gave a small shrug of one shoulder. “If I weren’t the Slayer, if I could keep them safe? Yeah …I guess,” she revealed softly. “But, that’s not—”

“What would ya name them?” Spike interrupted her ‘but’.

“Spike,” Buffy sighed. “I’m the Slayer. You’re a vampire. The First is about to overrun the world. This is pointless.”

“Just humor me, pet. Dream with me for a bit. It would mean a lot,” he requested gently. “If ya had kids, what would you name them?”

Buffy sighed again, thinking. “Well, it wouldn’t just be my decision, would it? I mean, it takes two to make kids.”

“I’ll name the dogs, you name the sprogs,” Spike suggested, smiling against her soft, dark hair.

Buffy barked out a short laugh. “There are dogs now, too? Is there a picket fence and window boxes full of flowers?”

“No to the picket fence – bloody dangerous, that is – but window boxes with red geraniums … and two little bits – boy and a girl. What are their names?” he asked again.

Buffy shook her head in a combination of amusement and dismay. “Okay … ummm … what was your mom’s name?”

“Anne,” Spike whispered softly, as if saying it too loudly would conjure her ghost.

Buffy nodded to herself and answered his pointless question. “Then, for a girl, Anne Joyce, for a boy … I think … _hmmm_ … I think maybe William Rupert.”

“Ya want the lad to be beaten up and have his lunch money stolen every bloody day on the way t’ school?” Spike objected.

Buffy laughed, shaking her head. “I’m sure between the two of us we could keep that from happening, dontcha think? Anyway, I think those are strong names, from two good men who mean the world to me.”

Spike bit his bottom lip and closed his eyes against a flood of emotion that swept over him. William and Anne – Billy and Annie from his dream. Was that just a coincidence that his subconscious would come up with the same names as she did? Or was it something more? Spike chose to believe it was something more – believing otherwise was something he was unwilling to face.

“I love you, Buffy,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “We’re gonna make it through this, pet. Both of us. I bloody promise.”

“I love you too, Spike,” she replied softly, her words heartfelt and pure. She smiled sadly in the dark and snuggled back against him tighter, letting her eyes fall closed, afraid that this was one promise he wouldn’t be able to keep, no matter how hard he tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you’re enjoying the intermission from angst, violence, imminent death, and annoying apparitions as much as Spike and Buffy are! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! 
> 
> Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!


	80. High Horse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy has her say about this whole Slayer gig. She makes her feelings abundantly clear when she meets The Last Guardian. More of her plan for defeating The First, and changing the destiny of Slayers forever, is revealed.
> 
> Note 1: At this writing, as far as I can find, The Last Guardian never revealed her name. I’m giving her a name just to make conversation easier. I chose a very old Scandinavian name just because the Guardian seemed to be Scandinavian to me for some reason. Talina is pronounced in three syllables: Ta-li-na
> 
> Note 2: Some dialogue directly from ‘End of Days’, Written by: Douglas Petrie and Jane Espenson

* * *

 

Buffy and Spike were awoken the next morning by Faith’s call of, “Yo! B!” and heavy footsteps clomping up the stairs.

Buffy had just blinked her eyes open when the other Slayer appeared in the open doorway of the bedroom. Since no one else shared this magical construct of Buffy’s house, she and Spike had not bothered with closing the bedroom door, let alone locking it. Faith was holding the shiny scythe that Buffy had pulled from the stone under the vineyard, and was making no attempt to avert her eyes from the scene she’d walked in on.

“Sorry, big guy. Need to borrow your snuggle bunny for a while,” Faith smirked, leaning against the doorjamb, letting her eyes wander appreciatively over Spike’s bare backside, which faced her. “On the plus side, I guess you can get your half of the covers back.”

Spike rolled over onto his back, unperturbed, casually lifting one arm behind his head on the pillow and looked at her. “No worries,” he assured the intruding Slayer. “Don’t need covers, do I?”

“Yes, actually you do,” Buffy growled in a sleep-roughened voice, tossing the comforter over him, as Faith ogled the unhappily brief full-frontal nudity show Spike had started.

“Damn, B,” Faith moaned. “That’s cruel and unusual.”

“Yeah, well, I’m the bad Slayer now, or did you forget?” Buffy retorted, grabbing the robe that Spike had taken off her last night and hastily pulling it on.

“Was there actually something you needed other than the free peep show?” Buffy wondered, her red eyes glittering dangerously as she tied the belt of the robe around her waist.

Spike shrugged helplessly at Faith and Faith sighed, lifting her eyes away from his now covered body to meet Buffy’s. The disappointed Slayer lifted up the scythe and announced, “We’ve got something on the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch I think you’ll want to hear.”

“Oh, I like this one,” Spike purred, sitting up and letting the cover fall from his chest and pool around his nether regions as he looked around the floor for his clothes.

“Looking for these?” Faith wondered, smirking as she picked his jeans up from where they lay on the floor near the door. “Come and get ‘em…” she taunted, grinning wickedly as they dangled from her finger by one belt loop.

“Oh, my God! You need to get laid … somewhere that is else!” Buffy declared, crossing the room and grabbing Spike’s jeans from Faith’s hand and tossing them over to him.

“Back off, bitch,” Buffy snapped as she pushed Faith out of the doorway and slammed the bedroom door in her face.

“Whoa, harsh!” Faith called from outside.

“Get used to it!” Buffy called back before whirling on Spike, her raven hair flying out in a dark nimbus around her head as she turned. “And you weren’t helping any!”

Spike grinned, running his tongue over his teeth salaciously. “Love it when you’re jealous, pet. Makes me feel all _manly_.”

Buffy stepped up and wrapped her hand around his cock which began to harden immediately under her touch.  She leaned in close to his ear and whispered threateningly, “This is mine.”

“Bloody right it is – along with the rest o’ me. Don’t suppose you’d like t’ assert your dominance over it right now, eh? Teach me a lesson or whatnot?” he purred back, his voice a honeyed, lusty invitation.

“Mmmm … what did you have in mind?” Buffy wondered quietly, as she stroked gently up and down the growing length of his shaft.

Spike bit his bottom lip, his blue eyes glittering with desire. “Don’t suppose the manacles are layin’ about around here? Probably need t’ punish me good and proper, luv. Let that hot, little demon inside you have its way with me again. Yer sweet fangs sinking into my neck … bloody hot, that was. Bet that demon would love another taste.”

“You’re right … you do need to be punished,” Buffy agreed lustily, her glittering red eyes meeting his as she kept stroking his member to rock hardness. “So, put your jeans on, zip them up tight, and bring your ass down to the meeting. _Now_.”

“Bloody hell,” he moaned. “Never knew what true pain was till I met you, Slayer.”

“And you love it,” Buffy declared, laughing wickedly as she released his cock.

“Bloody right I do,” he agreed, reaching for her and yanking her back down onto the bed. He rolled over atop her and captured her lips with his, kissing her deeply, passionately.

Buffy returned the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck, reveling in the feel of his hard body against hers, in the taste of him, the way he nipped and sucked at her lips, the way his tongue danced with hers.

“You’re not … getting out … of the meeting,” she panted against his lips when the kiss broke. “Get dressed.”

“Evil is what you are,” he insisted, rolling off of her reluctantly.

“Slayer, remember? The definition of evil,” she teased, sitting up and looking around for her clothes as Spike started pulling his jeans on.

Spike hmphed. “The First doesn’t stand a bloody chance against the likes of you.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Faith was waiting for them in the foyer when Buffy and Spike came downstairs. She motioned with her head toward the dining room and followed them in. Seated at the table waiting for them were Amanda and Giles, along with another woman Buffy didn’t know, who sat at the head of the table. Buffy frowned at that. What kind of guest sits at the head of the table?

The woman appeared to be quite old, but still very attractive, with long, silver hair that Buffy thought had been blonde in her youth. She was dressed in a simple, moss green kaftan that Buffy thought might’ve been a vibrant green at one time, but had been faded with age. The woman’s expression was solemn, her delft-blue eyes seemed almost haunted as she looked up and met the Slayer’s enquiring gaze.

“Meet Talina,” Faith said as they entered. “The last of The Guardians and maker of our shiny new toy. Apparently, she’s been living in a crypt on unconsecrated ground on the north side of town for, like, ever. Literally.”

Buffy’s brows rose in surprised interest, crinkling her leopard-spotted forehead.

“This is Buffy, _The_ Vampire Slayer,” Faith continued, addressing the woman as she set the scythe down on the table in front of two empty chairs, presumably where Buffy and Spike were to sit, to their guest’s left.

Buffy blinked her red cat eyes and looked at Faith. “Not _the_ Slayer, just _a_ Slayer,” she corrected.

Faith shrugged. “Buffy, the super-charged, bossy bitch of a Slayer-in-charge who pulled Excalibur from the stone, has died twice—"

“Three times,” Buffy corrected her, as Faith kept talking.

“…And has dibs on all the hot, oily, naked vampires,” Faith clarified, taking a seat on the other side of the table next to Amanda. Giles sat at the other end of the table, opposite Talina. “Just thought ‘ _The_ Slayer’ was simpler.”

Buffy rolled her eyes, folding her arms over her chest, and then looked back at the newcomer.

“You can just call me Buffy,” she offered genially as Spike pulled a chair out for her right next to the woman.

“He is a vampire. He has no place here,” the woman declared, ignoring Buffy, settling a stony, blue glare on Spike.

Spike arched an incredulous brow at the woman.

“He’s my husband, this is my house, and my rules. He stays,” Buffy retorted, her ire flaring in an instant, narrowing her glittering eyes at the woman.

“Told ya, Slayer in charge,” Faith interjected, leaning her chair back on two legs and smirking, waiting for the real fireworks to begin.

Buffy flicked her burning gaze at Faith and then back at Talina, who had shifted her eyes from Spike to Buffy. “Spike is part of this team and he’s not leaving. He helped me get this, he sacrificed pieces of his soul for it. So, if you have something to tell us about it, then you can tell us with him here, or get the fuck out.”

Buffy reached out and picked the scythe up off the table, feeling the power of it surge through her the moment she touched it. She handed the mystical weapon to Spike, holding the woman’s gaze with her demonic eyes, daring her to object.

The two women stared at each other for several long, tense moments, but finally The Guardian blinked, tilting her head slightly in acquiescence.

“I see you have met the shadow men,” Talina remarked as Buffy sat down in the chair Spike had pulled out for her. He laid the scythe back on the table and took his seat next to her, causally draping his arm over the back of her chair, just to remind the old biddy that he belonged here next to his Slayer.

“I met them. Their special talent seemed to be talking in cryptic circles. I won’t be adding them to my Christmas card list,” Buffy admitted.

“But you took their power,” the old woman pointed out.

Buffy shrugged. “It was the only thing they had that I thought would help me defeat The First.”

“You have taken the darkness inside you and yet you seem to have retained your humanity … mostly. Your association with a vampire is quite distributing, and you do seem a bit ...” Talina mused, studying her, trying to find the right word.

“Bitchy,” Faith filled in. “That’s nothing new, believe me.”

Buffy looked up at Faith and gave her an insincere smile. “Better a bitch than a psycho.”

“Ooo, reckon we need t’ add a Slayer matchup to the card at Thunderdome,” Spike suggested eagerly. “Same rules: lots a’ oil, clothing optional and strongly discouraged.”

“Perhaps we could leave the colorful commentary for another time,” Giles interrupted, looking at The Guardian. “You seem surprised Buffy has remained relatively unchanged from her encounter … apart from her outward appearance and added strength.”

“Indeed. The first Slayer became little more than a hunting machine, an animal guided by instinct alone,” Talina explained. “She lost most of her own humanity when the shadow men …” 

“Raped her,” Buffy interjected coldly.

“Well … I’m certain they did not see it that way,” the old woman replied coolly.

Buffy snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure she was asking for it in that skimpy outfit. I mean, who doesn’t want to be chained up and have a demon shoved inside them to consume their humanity, after all? I’m sure it was all just a merry mix-up,” she retorted scornfully.

“If you feel thus, why did you accept more of the demon within?” Talina wondered, her brows knitting in confusion.

“Who else was gonna do it? I’m the Chosen One … or … the first of the Chosen Ones,” she amended, looking at Faith and Amanda. “Saving the world, as usual, is on me. If the only way to do that is by letting those weak, misogynistic, dicks shove their darkness into my soul, then that’s what I’ll do. It doesn’t mean I have to like it, it’s just another sacrifice in a very long and deeply disturbing list.”

“Yes, I see,” the old woman acknowledged. “But how have you retained your humanity when she could not? Subsequent Slayers were not given the overwhelming, destructive power that the first girl received for that very reason. And now you have taken that power and more within you, and yet you remain…”

“The same ole B,” Faith provided sardonically.

Buffy turned her demonic cat-eyes on Spike, opening her left hand and laying it palm up on the table. Spike pulled his arm from around her back and laid his hand over hers, their fingers entwining naturally.

She looked back at The Guardian then and explained, “I’ve had help fighting the darkness for a long time now. I know what it is, I know how to control it, I know how to use it … Spike taught me. He … he’s my light in the darkness.”

“And she’s mine,” Spike added softly.

“How extremely … unconventional,” Talina proclaimed, her face awash in puzzlement.

“At least she didn’t call me an Abominable Snowman like you did,” Buffy observed, looking at Spike.

Spike’s brows drew together, and he shook his head in confusion before realizing, “Said you were an abomination, pet, not a bloody Yeti.”

“Oh … I knew that,” Buffy covered, shrugging, and turning back to the woman. “So, enough about me, what’s your story and what’s the deal with our shiny new plaything?”

“I am the last of The Guardians,” Talina explained. “The shadow men created the Slayer. The shadow men became the Watchers, and they watched the Slayers, but we were watching them. We were once many, but now only I remain of the group of powerful women who wanted to help and protect the Slayers.

“We forged the scythe with potent magics half a world away, centuries ago, in secrecy from the shadow men. It was made for one like you – the Chosen One – for her alone to wield. The first Slayer used it right here on this Hellmouth to kill the last pure demon on Earth, and then we placed it in the stone to wait for one like you to pull it out, to wait for this time when the rising dark threatened the Earth again.”

“Uhhh, not to be ungrateful girl,” Buffy interrupted her story. “But I know of nine or ten times the so-called ‘rising dark’ threatened the Earth in just the last few years.  Is it nine or ten, Giles? I lost count.”

Giles shook his head. “I honestly have no idea.”

“Uh-oh, here we go. I can feel it. Buffy’s climbing up on her high horse,” Faith moaned under her breath, rolling her eyes.

“Sarcasm noted and ignored,” Buffy shot back at her fellow Slayer, metaphorically climbing up onto her high horse as Faith had predicted, before turning her attention back to Talina. “How ever many it was, it sure would’ve been handy to have a super-charged weapon like this to use against, oh, I don’t know, say a Hell God, for example, or a Mayor who was trying to resurrect one of the Old Ones,” Buffy pointed out irritably. “Why in the world would you purposely hide something like this when we could’ve used it all this time?”

“I … well … we …” Talina stammered.

“And just what have you done to help protect Slayers?” Buffy continued, scowling at the woman.  “You didn’t even know my _name_ – I’ve been a Slayer for seven _years_ … not counting time off for death. You’ve been right here all this time, living around the corner from me, and never once thought it would be awesome to introduce yourself, come by for coffee, or tell me about this cool weapon that might actually help save the world. The First Freaking Evil knew where it was, apparently, but not a single Slayer or Watcher knew anything about it – believe me, we checked!

“So, how is it you’ve been helping me, exactly?” Buffy questioned scathingly, narrowing her glittering, red eyes at the woman dangerously.

“Well, we …” the woman began, but Buffy just kept talking over her, on a roll and unwilling to stop now.

“Also, if you were watching the Watchers, do you know about that Circumcision they put us through if we live to the ripe old age of eighteen?”

“Cruciamentum,” Giles corrected. “Tento di Cruciamentum.”

Buffy pulled her hand from Spike’s and waved it at Giles in agreement, her irritation growing by the moment. “Yeah, that! They take our powers away and toss us in a room with the craziest, strongest vamp they can afford at Vamps R Us! Where were you when that was going down?

“For that matter, where were you when they were raping that first girl? Why didn’t any of you powerful women step in and help her? Why didn’t you stop this? If you wanted to help so much, that might’ve been a handy thing to do,” Buffy ranted.

“Well, someone needed to…” Talina began to explain.

“Fight back the rising dark, protect the world from the vampires and the demons, blah, blah, blah. So I’ve heard,” Buffy finished, her voice dripping with so much derision it started to splatter onto the floor. “What was wrong with _you_ doing it, then?  Or the shadow men? Or maybe ask for volunteers. I mean, I’m sure there were people back then who would’ve liked to have gotten all that mojo and went to war with the boogey man.

“Do you have any idea how many lives you’ve ruined with this random mystical lottery of yours? How many girls have been snatched out of their happy, comfortable lives and tossed into the fire, sometimes literally? I, for one, am not a fan of this whole system of yours.  

“Faith, how about you?” Buffy asked looking over at the other Slayer.

Faith shrugged. “I’m cool with it. I really didn’t have anything better to do.”

Buffy rolled her red, demonic eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. “Why did I even ask you? You probably traded your high horse in for a cowboy,” she grumbled, before looking at the other Slayer next to Faith. “What about you, Amanda? Are you looking forward to a short, lonely, tragic life filled with fear, pain, and endless suffering before it finally, thankfully ends in a violent, terrifying, and meaningless death?”

“Ummm … well, since you put it that way, not so much,” the girl stammered, taken aback.

“Buffy, perhaps you shouldn’t scare the new Slayer quite so soon,” Giles suggested.

“Oh? Is this scaring her? I wonder how scared she’ll be when she gets to jump off a tower to close a portal to a hell dimension. Or when she has to blow up her school because the Mayor turned into a big worm –”

“Snake, actually,” Giles corrected, but Buffy just kept talking.

“Or set it on fire because it’s being overrun by vampires? Or how scared she’ll be when she gets to run her boyfriend through with a sword to save the world. Or send her husband to be tortured and used by The First Evil? Or watch her house get blown up and burned down not knowing if she was fast enough with the warning, not knowing if everyone got out in time or not, or if they all got barbequed to death. Or face a crazed vampire on her eighteenth birthday without any powers at all. Or maybe she’ll be one of the lucky ones and die before any of that happens to her.”

Everyone sat in an uncomfortable silence when Buffy finished, her outrage a palpable tension filling the room. She was breathing like she’d just run a mile, hyped up on righteous, indignant anger. Buffy hadn’t had time to beat the shit out of the shadow men after she’d gotten free from their chains – she really regretted that. She hoped that stupid demon managed it, cos they so needed a good beat down.

“I have all the shadow men’s power, and now I have the scythe,” Buffy said at last, her voice suddenly frighteningly calm. “This changes now. I will not allow one more girl to be raped by this … _Calling_. Not. One. More.”

The Guardian cleared her throat uncomfortably, reaching a hand out to touch the scythe protectively, drawing Buffy’s gaze to the mystical weapon, before responding. “While I understand your points, and can agree with your sentiment in principal, it sounds as if you intend to leave the Earth with no one to stand between humanity and the darkness. You yourself pointed out how many times a guardian of the Hellmouth has been needed. What of all the other girls whose lives would be cut woefully short if not for the Slayer?”

Buffy lifted her disconcerting scarlet eyes up from the scythe to the woman. “That’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m just giving girls the choice. Only the ones who feel strongly about wanting to accept this Calling will be Chosen. _Silence is not_ _fucking consent_. They have to choose it with their eyes wide open.”

“And if no one does?” Talina challenged, meeting her gaze.

“I know we agreed on this, but she’s got a point, B,” Faith spoke up. “I think you need to work on your marketing material a little if you want any of these girls to actually buy what you’re selling. Maybe a PowerPoint presentation with pictures of naked, oily vampires would help.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and bit back a sharp rejoinder, instead replying logically, “People volunteer to go to war all the time. Lots of people. Look at Sam and Riley and all those other Black Ops soldiers. They were all volunteers, they weren’t drafted and forced to fight demons. It’s time we brought this whole Slayer gig into the twenty-first century. With the Council destroyed, we can build it right – build a system that actually cares about the Slayers, that takes care of them, that actually watches _over_ them instead of just watching them get slaughtered,” she argued.

“Faith, Amanda, and I, we didn’t have a choice. The next Slayer will. Period,” Buffy asserted.

“I’m not certain that what you suggest is even possible,” Talina contended.

Buffy looked at her disdainfully. “You wouldn’t know what’s possible because you’ve never tried. We, on the other hand, have been doing the impossible for seven years. _Our_ powerful women are already well on their way to making this happen. Pay attention. You might learn something.”

The Slayer looked at Spike, laying her hand on his arm. “Could you go down and see if Will and Tara can come up and meet Talina?”

Spike nodded and began to stand up, but Faith suggested, “Why don’t we just go down to the War Room – the little geek’s promised to make Cinnabons today and I’m starving.”

“Note for marketing material: big plus to being a Slayer: eat all the food, all the time,” Buffy stated, nodding her agreement to Faith’s suggestion. “Naked, oily vampires could also be included.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Okay, so we’ve got the spell ready to go,” Willow told the gathered group, which included The Guardian, Talina, along with the rest of the Scoobies, the three Slayers, Giles, Spike, and Robin. “Lilith helped us work out a really powerful incantation for this.”

Everyone sat around the table in the War Room. The DEFCON level had been changed to ‘1.5’ on the door from ‘2’, which Buffy thought wasn’t an official level, but was accurate. DEFCON 1 – war – was approaching quickly.  Faith had been right about Andrew’s latest culinary artistry and there had been a large platter of freshly made Cinnabons waiting for them, along with plenty of coffee, and even blood for Spike.

Buffy sooo needed to get a hostage.

“Could you explain how it will work for Talina?” Buffy asked before diving into sticky cinnamon bun heaven with both hands.

“Right, sure,” Willow agreed, standing at the head of the conference table. “We’ll be creating three more scythes like this one,” she explained, laying her hand on the mystical weapon that had been created by The Guardians which rested on the conference room table.

“Three more!?” Talina questioned. “It took twelve of us several months to create this one.”

“Oh, well, yeah, from scratch it would take a long time, but we’re just replicating the magic, pulling the power from it, adding it to the demon mojo Buffy’s got, and dividing it all between the scythes, giving them all equal power,” Willow explained.

“Why three more?” the woman asked.

“Buffy wanted the power distributed so it wasn’t all in one person’s hands. So, after we’re done beating The First’s ass with them, one will stay with Buffy as the Senior Slayer, one will go to Giles as the head of the new Watcher’s Council, one will go to the General of the new Volunteer Slayer Army – assuming we have any volunteers – and one will stay with us … me and Tara. We don’t really have a snazzy title.”

“Guardians,” Buffy interjected. “You and Tara … you’re the new Guardians.”

“Oh! Cool … ummm … what do we guard?” Willow wondered.

“You watch over everything and make sure no one’s screwing the Slayers over,” Buffy explained. “You’re at the top of the food chain, watching everyone else.”

“Oh. Even you?” Willow wondered.

“Even me,” Buffy agreed.

“Oh! You’re like ‘M’ and Buffy’s 007!” Xander interjected excitedly. “Only, you know, younger and less British.”

Willow cleared her throat a little uncomfortably at the thought of being the boss of anyone, especially Buffy, but continued her explanation. “Right … well, so, the way the magic will work is: when a Potential volunteers to become a Slayer, and they’ve passed whatever training and tests the Watchers come up with, then a ceremony is done by us, ummm … by The Guardians, to imbue them with Slayer power. 

“If they die while they’re a Slayer, then the power will return to the scythe it was taken from to be given to someone else later. If they decide at any point that they don’t want to be a Slayer anymore, then we can reverse the magic and take the power back into the scythe.

“We talked about making it like the Army where you have to sign up for a minimum amount of time, like two years, at least, but that’s probably something the new Council should decide,” the witch finished.

“Anya’s been doing some digging into the Council’s finances,” Buffy added, having devoured her pastry and finished her coffee. “It turns out, they were filthy rich. They could’ve been supporting Slayers all this time instead of this bullshit of making us grub out a living while also saving the world. She’s going to be the new Financial Officer for the Council and she’ll make sure the Slayers are properly provided for.”

“So, now all we need are volunteers … and oily vampires,” Faith pointed out.

“Well, first we need to get the power divided up between the scythes,” Willow reminded her. “Which we’re ready to do whenever you are, Buffy.”

Talina looked across the table at Buffy and observed, “You have taken the power in, held it in check all this time – which I know has been no small undertaking – and now you are giving it away before the battle has even begun?”

Buffy met the old woman’s gaze levelly, her red eyes glittering with flecks of brilliant gold. “That’s right. Because it’s not just me in this battle. It’s Faith. It’s Amanda. It’s Spike. It’s every girl up there in that dorm that volunteers to join us. As Spike says, I’m an abomination: A Slayer with a team. And that’s why The First’s going down. It’s still operating under the old rules. I’m writing my own rules.”

“As, I might add, she had done since the start,” Giles interjected. “Which I’ve come to realize is what makes her so exceptionally brilliant at this.”

Buffy turned to look down the table at the man she’d always consider to be her Watcher no matter how old she got, in her mind and heart the moniker meaning more than the Council had ever intended. They’d been through hell together, not quite literally, but pretty close. He was her de facto father, not by blood, but certainly by heart, soul, and tears. His approval of her plan, his pride in her choices and the changes she was making meant the world to Buffy. Their eyes met and locked for a long moment, the heartfelt sentiment shared with that simple gesture was more than words could ever convey.

Finally, Buffy blinked and looked back at the red witch. “Let’s do this, M.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

On the floor out in the sparsely-furnished main room of the mansion near the fireplace, Willow and Tara set up the ceremonial accompaniments for the spell to create three more scythes.  They had drawn a circle in salt, within which was a triangle drawn in Slayer blood, one line from each of the three Slayers. Atop each of the three lines of blood that formed the triangle, Willow had placed a scythe that Xander had made, like the first one he’d made for Buffy.  Buffy sat in the center of the triangle facing the apex, holding The Guardian’s scythe across her lap as the power for the spell.

“So, I’m guessing Buffy gets the shiny one and we get to use the steampunk knockoffs?” Faith asked, eyeing the less shiny sisters to the real scythe.

“Oh! They’ll all look the same, they’ll be identical in every way when we’re done,” Willow assured her. “Those are just symbolic … something for the magic to build around, like bones.”

“Cool. Wouldn’t want B thinking she was special or anything,” Faith retorted sardonically, drawing an eye roll from Buffy who was waiting impatiently for Willow to do whatever she was gonna do.

“Okay, if everyone could just back up and stay quiet now,” Willow requested of the onlookers, which included not only everyone that had been in the war room, but also several of the more seasoned Potentials. Everyone took a few steps back, except for Spike, who wasn’t keen on any of this.

“I’ll be fine, baby … Willow knows what she’s doing,” Buffy assured him from her seat on the floor.

Spike arched a skeptical brow at the red witch. “Yeah, like she did when she—”

“Spiiike,” Buffy moaned interrupting whatever magical mishap he was about to recount. “That was a long time ago. Let it go. Trust me.”

Spike scowled, his hands firmly planted on his hips, but took about half a step back from the circle of salt that surrounded the triangle.

Buffy shook her head in exasperation then nodded at Willow to just go ahead.

Willow took a deep breath and looked at Tara, who did the same as they began the ceremony. Walking counter-clockwise around the triangle, within the circle of salt, Willow set a thick, white pillar candle down on each of the three points of the triangle and one in the center, in front of Buffy. As she walked she intoned, “We call on Libertas, the Goddess of Freedom, Hel, the Goddess of Power, Empousai, the Goddess of Darkness, and Artemis, the Goddess of Light.”

Following behind her a couple of steps, Tara lit each candle, slowly repeating Willow’s chant. They both continued walking around the triangle, still slowly and melodically repeating the incantation, but each off by one stanza, like children singing, ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’.

On the second trek around the triangle, Willow placed a set of unlocked handcuffs on the first scythe to symbolize freedom. On the second scythe she placed an ancient African carving of a leopard to symbolize power. Still chanting their incantation and walking counterclockwise around the triangle, Willow placed the skull of a murdered child, which Spike had retrieved from a crypt for them, on the third scythe to symbolize darkness. Finally, she placed a feather from a white dove inside the triangle in front of Buffy to symbolize light.

As Tara followed Willow around the circle chanting, she trickled several drops of vampire blood atop each symbolic representation of the four goddesses being invoked.

On their third circuit around the triangle, still chanting their appeal to the four goddesses, Willow scattered dried rosemary atop each of the blood-splattered symbols, representing the power of women, and Tara added dried anemone representing protection and healing.  

Finally, having completed the counter-clockwise circle three times, they both stopped chanting, Tara finishing a few seconds after Willow. Willow then knelt down above the apex of the triangle, facing Buffy, while Tara remained standing just behind the red witch. Tara looked up and raised her arms over her head, spreading them out as if funneling power down from above. Willow mirrored her, looking down, spreading her arms out toward the floor, touching the two lines of blood that met at the top of the triangle.

Both witches spoke in unison then, as if a silent signal had passed between them, “Goddesses of the firmament. Divine Immortals of the universe. Release our sisters from the chains of shadows. Return their freedom. Restore free will. Safeguard their power, molding weapons of light for all future generations. They are Chosen no more. They choose.

“Libertas! Potentia! Exonero! Sumo!

“So mote it be!” the two witches finished strongly, their voices carrying as if through an amplifier through the otherwise silent room.

For one heartbeat nothing happened, and then everything seemed to happen at once. A tremendous wind whipped around the three women in the salt circle and the floor beneath them began to tremble. The scythe in Buffy’s hands began to glow, burning red hot against her flesh, but she couldn’t release it, her hands fused to it as if it were part of her, or she a part of it.

In the next moment, her head snapped back, her wide eyes glowing red and glittering with the bright metallic specks of gold, with no white showing at all.  Buffy screamed as the dark, demonic power she had taken from the shadow men flowed from her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears like a black, oily cloud. A moment later, sparks of red and gold appeared in the cloud like lightning bugs, flashing and glowing in the depths of the darkness. The cloud swirled and sparkled wildly in the tumultuous wind that whipped around like a cyclone within the magical circle, filling the area floor to ceiling, as if contained within a glass tube.

“Buffy!” Spike yelled, making to take a step forward, but Faith caught his arm and pulled him back, keeping him from breaking the magical circle.

“Wait!” she demanded, stepping in front of him and pushing him back even further from the mystical storm that brewed in the center of the room. Faith followed him back, pushing him by the shoulders until his back hit the wall.

“She’s bloody dying in there!” he argued, making to push past the Slayer.

“She’s not! Just wait!” Faith insisted, grabbing hold of his arm again with an iron grip.

“Bloody bitch!” Spike growled, his demon rising as he drew his other arm back and punched her hard in the jaw, yanking his captured arm free of her grasp.

“Fuck!” Faith exclaimed, part from surprise and part from pain, as Spike started for the whirling black cyclone and Buffy’s anguished screams.

Robin stepped in front of the furious vampire, blocking his path. “She said to wait,” the big, black man asserted icily, his hands curled into fists, ready to fight.

Spike roared and slammed his fist into the larger man’s jaw, snapping the newest Watcher’s head to the side violently and sending blood spurting from his mouth.  The blow didn’t knock the experienced demon hunter out or even knock him down. The big man recovered quickly and retaliated with what would’ve been a bone-crushing punch against anyone but a century-old, furious vampire. 

The big man’s fist connected cleanly with Spike’s jaw, turning the vamp’s head to the side, but inflicting no real harm. Spike growled furiously and drew back again, set on inflicting maximum damage to the son of Nikki Wood. Before Spike could strike, though, Faith and Amanda had both grabbed one of his arms and were hauling him back again, away from the bleeding man, away from the screams of his wife.

“She’s not dying!” Faith insisted again when the two Slayers had him pinned against the wall. “Can’t you feel it!? The power?”

“Don’t feel a bloody thing! Hear her well enough!” Spike snarled, struggling vainly against the two Slayers holding him, who were keeping him from reaching his wife, who was clearly in pain, who clearly needed his help.

“JUST. FUCKING. WAIT,” Faith demanded again. “If you break that circle we could all be dead – including her!”

The swirling black cloud of demonic power obscured the forms within the circle, but Buffy’s agonized scream could be heard clearly. Bursts of red and gold glittered and sparkled in the dark depths of the cloud, whirling around and around, like a tornado was running through a fireworks display.  It seemed to go on forever to Spike, but, in truth, it lasted about half a minute.

And then it stopped. In fact, everything stopped. The wind stopped swirling within the circle. The ground stopped shaking. The black cloud of demonic power suddenly divided and flowed into the scythes that lay within the circle, taking the sparkling red and gold power with it, clearing the air as if it had never been.

Spike saw Buffy then. Her whole body was glowing as if lit by an inner sun. Her hair was snowy white and floated around her head like corn silk, weightless, as if gravity no longer existed. Small sparks of electricity danced around the ends like tiny blue bolts of lightning leaping across the surface of her cloud of brilliant white hair. Her eyes were the blue of the sky, not just the irises, but her whole eyes, and shone just as brightly as the sky on a sunny, summer’s day. She held the scythe above her head in both hands, as if offering it to the goddesses Willow and Tara had invoked. Beside and behind her on the floor, where Xander’s versions of the scythe had been, lay three exact replicas of the one in her hands.

Willow and Tara were just as they had been when the ceremony began, but Spike spared little attention for them, his full attention on Buffy.

“What the bloody hell ‘ave they done now?” he muttered angrily, as Faith and Amanda released him and turned to see what was happening.

Spike had only taken one step forward when all three women in the circle collapsed as if they had been puppets and their strings were suddenly cut.

“Buffy!” he exclaimed, rushing to her side. She was no longer glowing, her hair had morphed back to her normal blonde, and the leopard spots on her brow and cheekbones were gone, as were her fangs.

Spike dropped to his knees next to her and pulled her into his arms, listening for her heartbeat, for the rush of blood through her veins. It was there, bounding, racing, thudding wildly, and he let out a small sigh of relief. Her body was quivering in his arms, every muscle seemed to be dancing with small electrical shocks. Her eyes were closed, her breathing erratic and raspy, and her hands trembled as he pulled them away from the scythe that now lay on the floor in front of her.

“Buffy, luv…” he murmured against her ear, pulling her onto his lap like a child. “Can ya hear me?”

Buffy slowly blinked her eyes open. Her pupils were dilated to their limits with just a hint of shimmering almost-demonic hazel, which Spike recognized all too well, showing around the very edges.

“Wow …” she murmured dazedly, letting her lids fall closed indolently.

“ _Wow_?” Spike repeated derisively. “Thought you were dyin’ in here!”

“Uh-huh,” she agreed. “Died… heaven.”

“Bloody hell,” he groaned. “Shagging the bleedin’ Universe!? How am I supposed t’ compete with that?”

Buffy opened her eyes again and gave him a drunken grin. “Practice…” she suggested. “Lots and lots of practice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Buffy go with Faith’s idea of a PowerPoint presentation with oily vampires for her recruitment speech to the Potentials, or pick a different tact? How will it go over? Will she get any volunteers at all? And just how much more 'practice' do you think Spike needs to compete with Buffy shagging the Universe? When will they find that much time?
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! 
> 
> Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!


	81. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has some choices to make…
> 
> Some dialogue from ‘Chosen’ Written by: Joss Whedon

* * *

 

With Xander, Dawn, and Anya checking on Willow and Tara, who were also recovering from magically shagging the Universe in an epic foursome that left Spike envious and a little worried, he helped Buffy up and into one of the nearby training rooms. The room was empty, with everyone still out in the main room where the spell had been done, either helping the witches, admiring the scythes, or just generally chattering about what had happened. Since she was still a bit shaky, he set Buffy down on a pile of thick, blue mats in one corner, and went back to close the door. He slid a rack of dumbbells in front of the door to assure privacy before coming back over to check on her.

She looked up, a small, crooked grin on her face. “When I said ‘practice’, I didn’t mean right now,” she teased as he dropped down to sit on the edge of mats next to her.

Spike smirked but didn’t move to touch her, instead leaning his elbows on his knees and turning his head to the side to look at her.  “Reckon I should give ya some time to let the memory of that fade, luv. Might make me seem inadequate or some such rot.”

Buffy gave him a playful smile. “Well, you might not want to wait _that_ long; I could be dead by the time _that_ memory fades.”

“Know just what to say to make a bloke feel better ‘bout his manhood,” he grumbled, but there was a teasing gleam in his blue eyes.

His expression suddenly softened, and worry crept into his eyes. “Are you damaged?”

Buffy shook her head assuringly. “Nope, I’m fine. Well … as fine as I ever was.”

“Wish ya hadn’t given all that power away, luv,” he admitted, finally reaching a hand out to touch her, laying it gently on her arm.

“I’m still me, Spike. I’m still the … _a_ Slayer. Still strong enough to beat _you_ up,” she contended teasingly.

“Not me I’m worried about, luv, and ya know it,” Spike continued, not falling into her attempt at levity.

Buffy sighed and slid over closer to him so their bodies touched from shoulder to knee as they sat on the edge of the mats. She reached out and took one of his hands in both of hers and held it gently, her green eyes tracking up to meet his concerned blue ones. “Didn’t you promise me we were both gonna be fine? Make lots more memories?” she asked, shrugging nonchalantly.

Spike scowled and looked down at their hands, breaking eye contact. “Yeah, I promised, luv, but don’t need you making it harder for me to keep!”

Buffy snorted out a short laugh. “You’re up to the task,” she assured him. “You’ll just have to trust me, Spike. It was the right thing to do.”

Spike nodded and laid his other hand over hers. He was still worried, but let it go since it wouldn’t change anything now – her extra power was gone, and he knew she wouldn’t take it back, even if she could. He’d just have to find a way to keep that promise, not matter what.

“Can I ask ya something else?” he wondered after a moment.

“You know you can ask me anything,” she replied softly. “But I don’t kiss and tell, so if it’s about Mr. Universe, then… no dice.”

Spike snorted and looked back over at her. “If you had the choice you’re givin’ these girls, what would you have done?”

Buffy’s breath caught in her throat and she dropped her eyes away from his, it being her turn now to look down at their hands. “I didn’t, so that’s irrelevant.”

“Didn’t know ya felt raped, pet. I see it now, after your rant to Grandma Moses, but … guess I never thought of it before. I feel like …” Spike stopped and shook his head, looking out across the room at nothing. “… like, I’ve somehow … added to it … raped ya, too …” he stammered, his throat tight with emotion.

“Spike! No!” Buffy assured him, looking back up at him. “You make it bearable, you’re my light, baby.”

“But if you had to choose, you wouldn’t have chosen this … this life,” he whispered roughly, still not meeting her eyes.

Buffy sighed and slid off the mats and down onto her knees in front of him, forcing him to look at her. “You didn’t have a choice either. Would you have chosen what Dru did to you?”

Spike’s mouth drew into a thin, hard line. “Never felt like I’d been raped.”

“Well, you were. She didn’t give you a choice, just like the shadow men’s magic didn’t give me a choice. What we had was stolen from us. You can’t sit there and tell me that you would have chosen that,” Buffy insisted.

Spike finally shifted his gaze to meet hers directly. “That’s where you’re wrong, pet. Knowing everything I know now, I would’ve … I would’ve chosen this over what I had, over who I was then.”

Buffy sighed and looked down. Her heart constricted painfully in her chest, and tears suddenly welled in her eyes. “So now I’m the cold-hearted bitch again because I … I …wouldn’t have?

“Well, that’s just not fair!” she exclaimed suddenly, standing up and turning away from him, wrapping her arms around her stomach, which suddenly had snakes writhing in it. “I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, let you into places in my soul that I didn’t even know existed, but it feels like it’s never enough for you, like … I’m not enough.”

“No, Buffy … pet,” Spike assured her softly, standing up and wrapping his arms around her gently, holding her back against his front. “It’s not that, luv. You are all I could ever want or dream of. I just … I don’t want t’ keep raping you.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked through her tears, which had started falling in earnest. She pulled out of his embrace and turned to face him, searching his face, his eyes, for answers. “You’ve never …”

“If you keep your power cos of me when you could give it all back, then how am I any different than…”

Buffy shook her head. “I can’t, Spike … I can’t give it…”

“Reckon you could, if ya wanted to,” he contended. “Red’s a bloody powerful witch … between her and Lilith, they’d find a way, luv. If ya wanted to. But if you keep it cos of me, then …”

“Then _I choose_ , Spike,” Buffy finished. “It’s not the same thing as what the shadow men’s magic did.”

“You don’t understand, luv. I can’t give you that normal life you wanted so badly. That life that they stole from you … a life in the sun, where you belong,” he explained solemnly, his worried eyes imploring her to understand.

Buffy laid her palm gently against his cheek, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears as she looked into his. “You give me so much more,” she whispered through her tight throat. “I love you. You’re my husband. I choose you. My demon claimed you. You’re mine. I’m not going anywhere without you, whether you like it or not.

“Plus, the sun? Very overrated. Gives you wrinkles, not to mention skin cancer and possibly cataracts.”

Spike bit his bottom lip and nodded somberly, feeling more than a little relieved. “So, yer saying I can’t get rid of you, then? Cos, thought if you went off to Normal-land, I’d give the psycho one with daddy issues a go … see if she can make me beg ‘er to stop,” Spike told Buffy, unsmiling but with a teasing glint in his blue eyes.

“Oh, you did, huh? Well, too bad for you, buddy. You’re stuck with me now, for better or worse,” Buffy informed him, stepping up and wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her body against his.

Spike’s arms went around her, and he pulled her into a desperate hug, burying his face against her shoulder. “I love you, Buffy. Just want you happy, pet. All I ever want.”

“You make me happy, Spike,” she assured him, holding him just as tightly. “I love you.”

Suddenly there was an insistent knocking on the barricaded door. “Yo, B! Get off the vampire! The other half of the cage match is out here,” Faith’s voice called when the banging stopped.

Buffy’s brows drew together, then she and Spike both said at the same time, but in different tones, “Angel.” Spike’s voice was derisive, Buffy’s confused.

“What the bloody hell does he want? Come t’ collect rent?” Spike snarled, releasing his hold on the Slayer and turning toward the door.

“Well, he’s can keep dreaming, cos we don’t have any cash left,” Buffy observed, following Spike.

“Maybe he came to give us a wedding gift,” Spike suggested, smirking.

Buffy laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s it … probably a jacket with extra-long sleeves that tie in the back for me.”

“And a wooden stake fer me,” Spike added, pushing the rack of dumbbells away from the door.

“He’s so thoughtful,” Buffy teased, pulling the door open.

The two blondes were still smiling convivially when they stepped back out into the main room where Angel was waiting, his arms crossed over his chest and a deep scowl on his face. The rest of the onlookers had apparently been shooed away from the area, because the only other person there was Faith.

“Believe me now?” Faith asked the unhappy vampire standing next to her.

“Are you kidding me?” Angel groaned, stepping forward toward the pair. “I walk away to give you a chance at something better, and _this_ is what you come up with? _Spike!?!_ ” he demanded, saying his grand-childe’s name with enough venom to fell an elephant.

The dark vamp narrowed his eyes at Spike, shooting daggers at the blond, trying to dust him on the spot with just a look. Spike smirked back at him, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin in defiance as he reached for Buffy’s hand.

“Hello to you, too,” Buffy replied congenially, linking her hand with Spike’s and giving Angel a brilliant smile. “If you’re here to collect rent, you’ll have to submit a request in triplicate to the Financial Officer and wait your turn like everyone else.”

“I … what?” Angel stammered, tearing his seething gaze away from Spike and giving her his attention.

“I said, we don’t have any cash here, you’ll have to bill us for the rent,” Buffy repeated.

“I don’t want _rent_ ,” he told her. “Mi casa es su casa … but it’s not _his_ casa! He’s … uninvited,” the big vamp insisted waving a hand toward Spike.

“Well, if it’s my casa, then it’s my rules, and I say Spike is invited and stays. If you don’t like it, you can just go,” Buffy retorted.

“But it’s _my_ casa!” Angel argued, exasperated.

“You just said it was mine! Geez, Angel, make up your mind,” Buffy groaned, rolling her eyes.

“Don’t see any gayly wrapped gifts, luv. Bloody rude, if ya ask me,” Spike pointed out.

Buffy shrugged. “Well, we did elope, so not sure it’s technically required.”

“Elo—” the word caught in Angel’s throat and he began to choke convulsively.

“Oh, no one told you?” Faith interjected, slapping Angel on the back hard enough to make him stumble forward a step. “B knocked Spike up and had to marry him.

“I can’t wait to see if we’re having a bouncing baby vampire or a sweet little Slayer. It’s hard to shop without knowing. I mean, what if I buy a cute little pink stake and it’s a vampire? How embarrassing would that be?”

Spike arched an inquiring, slightly confused brow at Buffy, but she just shrugged.

“Just keep the receipt and you can exchange it for a bottle of blood,” she advised Faith.

“Am a bit worried ‘bout my girlish figure,” Spike sniffed, going along. “Will ya still love me when I can’t see my prick, pet?”

“Of course, baby,” Buffy replied soothingly, patting a hand down on Spike’s flat stomach. “I’ll help you find it, trust me.”

“Oh my God … I’m gonna be sick,” Angel groaned, clutching his stomach.

“If ya puke on my clean floor, you’ll be cleanin’ it up, mate,” Spike informed him. “Vampires in my delicate condition can’t be mopping up after poofters.”

“Buffy,” Angel beseeched her, stepping forward. “It’s _Spike_. He doesn’t even have a soul.”

“Actually, he does,” Buffy informed Angel.

“Had one ‘fore you did,” Spike added, squaring his shoulders and standing up a bit taller.

“What!? No, you didn’t!”

“Did too … ask the Slayer,” Spike challenged.

Angel looked at Buffy in confusion and she shrugged. “Yeah, well … maybe not his _soul_ per se to start with, but … a good chunk of his humanity. It was just buried for a long time, but it’s always been there.”

“Oh, that’s just great,” Angel groused, throwing his arms out in frustration. “How the hell did you manage that?”

Spike curled his tongue against his teeth and narrowed his azure eyes at the larger vamp for a long moment, then said, “Had honor and integrity – powerful enough that the demon couldn’t kill it, didn’t I? Wasn’t a limp-dicked layabout with no bloody scruples like you, _Liam_.”

“Why you little…” Angel growled, his demon rising as he pulled his fist back and drove it forward toward Spike’s face.

Spike ducked and released Buffy’s hand before plowing forward and tackling Angel around the middle, driving him backwards and slamming him down on the hard, stone floor.

Faith jumped back out of the way as the two furious vampires snarled and grappled, fangs gnashing and fists flying. “Should we stop them?” she asked Buffy, who had crossed her arms over her chest and stood watching the melee impassively.

“Might as well. There’s no oil and way too many clothes,” the blonde replied with a sigh. “You take Angel, I’ll get Spike,” she suggested, dropping her arms and getting ready to dive in.

“On three,” Faith said, moving around to the other side of the snarling vampires. “One, two, three!”

The two Slayers waded into the fray, each one grabbing hold of their respective vampires and hauling them back by whatever means necessary.

“Bloody hell, woman! I was winning!” Spike complained when Buffy slammed his back against the nearest wall. “Never stop a fight when I’m winning!”

“Sorry about that, but we didn’t have the oil ready to pour all over you two, so …” she shrugged.

Spike clicked his tongue irritably. “Jokes, is it? Not bloody funny.”

“Wasn’t a joke,” she asserted, but a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

She lightly patted his blood-stained cheek with her palm a few times. “Drop the fang gang now. We have bigger fish to fry than Angel.”

Spike sighed heavily and shook his head like a dog flinging off water and his demon retreated, leaving his blue eyes staring back at her, looking just as irritated as the demon had.

“Have you got yours calmed down?” Buffy called back over her shoulder to Faith.

“He won’t drop his scary face,” Faith called back from the other side of the room.

“Kick him in the balls,” Buffy suggested, making Spike smirk and look past her to watch.

“Bollocks…” Spike groaned when Angel pushed his demon back before Faith could carry out Buffy’s plan.

Buffy turned away from Spike and walked across the room, over to Angel and Faith. Spike followed her, but she made sure to stay between him and his grandsire to hopefully avoid round two – or at least delay it until there was oil.

“So, not that it hasn’t been fun catching up, but was there actually some reason you dropped in?” Buffy asked the big vamp, who was wiping blood off his mouth with his sleeve.

Angel glared at Spike over Buffy’s shoulder, but reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy, silver necklace with a large, glittering, multifaceted crystal amulet hanging from it.

“I can say with certainty that I have nothing that will go with that,” Buffy informed him dryly.

“Yeah, well, it’s not for you,” Angel retorted.

“Not my style, either, big guy,” Faith interjected. “I’m more of a studded collar kinda girl.”

Angel let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s _mine_.”

Buffy’s brows went up. “Not that I’m one to judge, but it’s a little surprising that you’d have something to go with that.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “It’s not a fashion statement. It’s a magical amulet. I don’t know everything. It’s very powerful and probably very dangerous. It has a purifying power? Cleansing power? Possibly scrubbing bubbles. The translation is a little murky. Anyway, it bestows strength to the right person who wears it.”

“And the right person is someone with Elizabeth Taylor’s taste in jewelry?” Buffy wondered.

Angel sighed. “You’ve been hanging around with Captain Peroxide too long – you’ve caught his sarcastic tongue,” he informed her.

“Well, in my defense, his sarcastic tongue is pretty tempting and very tasty,” Buffy admitted, running her own tongue over her lips to demonstrate the yumminess.

“I’m Slayer kibble, delicious, head t’ toe. Gobbles me up like pudding, she does,” Spike added haughtily.

“Please. Stop,” Angel groaned, closing his eyes and giving his head a shake to try to dislodge that image from his mind.

After a moment, Angel looked back at Buffy and explained, “It’s to fight The First, Buffy. It’s for someone ensouled but stronger than human. A champion. As in _me_.”

“Pfffft!” Spike snorted stepping up beside the Slayer, directly in front of Angel, and hooking his thumbs over his belt buckle. “Champion my aching asshole. A bloody second-rate Nancy Drew with a soul that’s slippery as a greased eel, is what you are.”

“That’s a greased _pig_ ,” Angel corrected through clenched teeth.

Spike sneered at him. “Well, reckon you’d know, Wilbur.”

“Wait, I thought Wilbur was a talking horse,” Faith questioned.

“That’s Mr. Ed. He belonged t’ Wilbur,” Spike corrected her.

“A greased pig owned a talking horse?” Faith asked, confused. 

“Nooo, Wilbur was a friend of Charlotte, the spider, who saves ‘im from being slaughtered,” Spike continued.

“So … a spider saves a pig who owns a talking horse … where does the eel come in?” Faith wondered, scratching her head, her brows knit in confusion.

Spike looked at Angel in exasperation. The big vampire rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Good luck with that,” he offered the blond. “Better you than me.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “The bloody point is, if anyone’s to wear it, it’s _me_.”

“Or me,” Buffy put in.

“NO!” Angel and Spike both exclaimed at once, glaring at her.

“Wow … both of you agreeing on something. The end must really be super-nigh,” Buffy observed, only partly in jest.

“Didn’t ya hear him say it was dangerous?” Spike asked her.

“I’m the Slayer, Spike. ‘Danger’ is my middle name,” Buffy retorted.

“And all this time I thought it was ‘Bitch’,” Faith interjected. “How about I solve this? I’ll wear it.”

“No, you can’t,” Buffy disagreed.

“Why not? You don’t think I’m good enough? I’ve got a soul … I think … pretty sure. It might be a little rusty, but …” Faith argued.

“It’s not that,” Buffy replied. “I can’t risk you that way. The girls … the Slayers, they’ll need their General.”

“Their … _General_?” Faith asked hesitantly. “I thought … Robin.”

Buffy shook her head. “No, Faith. You. You’re the General. The new Slayers will need you to guide them. Not just now, but in the future.”

“But … I … Has someone switched bodies with you again?” Faith wondered, studying her blonde counterpart closely.

Buffy smiled and shook her head. “You’re ready, Faith. You’re their leader.”

“So, then, it’s back t’ me. Clearly, I’m the most qualified, and I don’t have a pack of estrogen bombs depending on me to braid their hair,” Spike claimed, reaching out and snatching the amulet from Angel’s hand.

Buffy turned to Spike, shaking her head, ready to refute him. “It’s Angel’s doodad, maybe he should…”

“Buffy, not sitting on the sidelines here, pet,” he told her, meeting her gaze with crystal blue determination. “Know ya intend t’ give me one of your new preacher slicers t’ take in there, but it’s just a shiny axe in my hands. This …” He lifted the amulet higher, up into her field of vision. “This might be my chance to really help you.”

“It might also be your chance to die,” she whispered, barely able to get the words out.

“Didn’t I make ya a promise, pet?” he asked, just as softly.

Tears welled in Buffy’s eyes and spilled over, slipping down her cheeks as her heart constricted tightly in her chest. “You don’t know what that will do. You can’t know …”

“I know,” Spike assured her. “I’ve trusted you, haven’t I? Did everything ya asked of me. Now I’m asking you to trust me. Let me do my part. It’s the right thing to do, and you know it, Slayer.”

Buffy swallowed hard. His use of ‘Slayer’ instead of ‘Buffy’ not lost on her. They were all at risk in this fight, but Buffy wouldn’t put him in added peril, not for any reason, not for any mission. But the Slayer had before, and he knew the Slayer would again.

Buffy blinked back her tears, swiping her fingers across her cheeks and nodded soberly. She turned back to Angel and cleared her throat of her emotions before speaking. “Spike will wear it.”

Angel frowned, looking from Buffy to Spike and back again. “Are you sure?”

Buffy nodded. “Yeah. I … I trust him.”

“Meaning you don’t trust me?” Angel asked, looking down at her with a mixture of hurt and confusion.

Buffy met his eyes a moment, then looked past him, over his right shoulder, unable to hold his gaze. “You’ve been known to …”

“Bollocks everything up,” Spike finished for her smugly.

“I was gonna say, ‘let me down,’ actually,” Buffy corrected, finding the courage to meet Angel’s eyes again.

“And Spike hasn’t?” Angel challenged angrily. “I find that very hard to believe! How many times has he tried to kill you?”

“How many times have _you_!? You killed Miss Calendar! You tortured Giles! You awakened Acathla! Shall I go on?” Buffy asked angrily.

Angel clenched his jaw and closed his eyes a moment, his hands curling into fists of frustration at his sides. “No, I wish you wouldn’t,” he said at last, opening his eyes and looking down at her.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Buffy admitted, getting her temper under control. “But Spike doesn’t run away from them. He stays … or, comes back, at least. He fixes it. He won’t let me down.”

Angel hmphed, crossing his arms over his chest irritably.

“Do you remember when Spike first came to town?” Buffy continued. “You told us that once Spike starts something he doesn't stop. You were right – Spike doesn’t give up, no matter what.”

“I said he doesn’t stop until everything in his path is _dead_ ,” Angel reminded her. “Which may very well be what happens here!”

Buffy shrugged. “You could be right, that could be what happens here. But it won’t be because Spike didn’t do everything in his power to stop it.

“If that does happen, then it’ll fall to you, Angel. There’s no one else to stand between The First’s Army and the rest of the world if we fail here,” Buffy informed him. “So, if you have any other tricks up your sleeve or in your pockets, you might want to pull them out now.”

Angel scowled but shook his head. “That’s all I’ve got,” he admitted.

“Then we’ll hope between that and the preacher slicers, it’ll be enough,” Buffy concluded.

“I can stay and fight,” Angel offered.

“No,” Buffy refused. “I’m counting on you to be the last line of defense if we fail. You need to be in L.A, be ready in case this whole thing goes very wrong. I’m counting on you to not let me down this time, Angel.”

The big vampire nodded. “I won’t,” he promised solemnly.

Buffy nodded. “See that you don’t.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Later that afternoon, Buffy walked into the large lecture hall that was part of the Potentials’ training area. The room reminded her of classrooms on the USC campus, with the instructor on the floor at the front of the room and the seats arranged in a semi-circle around the lectern, each subsequent row a couple of steps higher than the one before. The room’s seating capacity was about a hundred people, she guessed. Currently, over half the seats were filled by chattering Potentials, with the Scoobies, along with Andrew, Robin, Giles, Faith and Amanda in the very front row nearest her.

Standing at the front beneath everyone else made Buffy think this must have been what it felt like when the Romans sent the Christians into the Colosseum to face the lions. She wasn’t sure that was a good thing, but tried to pretend that she was the lion, not the Christian.

Buffy half-sat on the edge of a long table that held the four magical scythes and waited for everyone to quiet down so she could speak. And she waited. And waited. All the girls kept talking to their neighbors. She could hear descriptions of the spell Willow had done to create the scythes being relayed, getting a bit more outlandish and wild with each retelling. She could hear them discussing what Andrew had made for lunch – Monte Cristo sandwiches and curly fries – and them wondering what dinner would bring. She heard all manner of small talk, from discussions of shampoo and conditioners to how to get blood out of their clothes to the proper way to hold a stake.

It was all so … normal. Well, apart from the blood and stake parts. Like normal girls on a normal day at school.

Except it wasn’t. They weren’t normal girls. This was no normal day. And this was no normal schoolroom.

And that was what Buffy needed to impress on them.

Buffy picked up two of the scythes, one in each hand, and flung them away from her, one to her right, the other to her left. They both hit the walls on either side of her at the same time, the magically endowed blades burying themselves several inches into the wood and plaster. The sound of impact echoed through the hall, quieting the girls in an instant, leaving only the soft ‘twang’ of vibrating metal in the air of the large room.

“What is it to be a Slayer?” Buffy asked after a moment, when all eyes shifted from the shining axes to her.

“Power!” someone called out from above, followed by, “Strength!” “Bravery!” “Fighter!” “Instinct!” “Fast healing!”

Buffy waited a moment, making sure no one else wanted to chime in, before saying, “Death.”

Faith rolled her eyes in the front row. “This won’t end well…” she muttered, turning to look up at the faces of the girls and seeing everything from fear to confusion.

Buffy turned and began to pace slowly back and forth across the floor, letting that sink in a moment.

Just when Buffy turned to head back across the floor, Spike leapt down from a hiding place behind a large projection screen. He sailed straight at her back, black duster billowing out behind him, fangs and claws bared and ready to shred.

The entire group of girls gasped as one, nearly drowning out Spike’s savage growl.

Buffy dropped flat to the ground, and Spike sailed over her, landing in a graceful roll and coming back up to his feet a few feet away. Buffy jumped back to her feet in the next instant and the two supernatural warriors both charged each other at once. They met in the middle with an audible impact that could be felt several rows up and heard by all.

Both led with their fists, each connecting with the jaw of the other, sending heads snapping to the side violently. The follow-up punch with the other hand hit within a moment, Spike aiming for her throat, Buffy for his solar-plexus. They both connected and both staggered back, Spike bent over slightly and clutching at his stomach while Buffy gasped for air through her bruised windpipe.

The pause was only momentary though. In the next instant, Buffy turned and spun, sending a booted round-house kick toward Spike’s mid-section. He blocked it, grabbing her foot and twisting, picking her completely up off the floor and spinning her whole body around before slamming her to the ground. He dove at her, but she recovered and caught him in midair, kicking him up and over her head and sending him tumbling into the wall with a heavy thud.

Buffy whipped her body powerfully and was back on her feet in an instant. She closed the distance between them in the span of a heartbeat, but Spike, too, had regained his feet and he was ready for her charge, using her momentum against her and slamming her head-first into the wall at his back.

She staggered, momentarily dazed, and Spike took advantage, wrapping a steel-corded arm around her throat, choking her as he roared in victory, fangs flashing dangerously. His fangs were only a millimeter from penetrating her smooth skin when Buffy bent forward and rolled in a somersault across the floor, dislodging his hold when she landed atop him.

She rolled back up to her feet and turned back in one fluid motion. A stake was in her hand in the next second and she was atop him, pinning him down before he could regain his feet, the stake pressed dangerously over his unbeating heart.

Spike spread his hands out and up in surrender, his demonic eyes glowing yellow, clearly unhappy with the outcome.

“Death,” Buffy panted out breathlessly, her voice hoarse from the punch she’d taken to the throat, still holding the stake against the vampire’s heart. She paused, then gulping in air a few moments to get her breath back before continuing to speak.

“Ours or theirs. There’s always death,” she announced finally, getting up off her husband and facing the girls as she wiped blood off her mouth from Spike’s punch.

Spike rolled over onto hands and knees and pushed himself to his feet. Clutching his stomach again, which had never actually stopped hurting, but now seemed worse after losing, he made his way to an empty seat next to Faith and lowered himself into it gingerly.

“What did I do wrong in that fight?” Buffy asked, rubbing her throat.

Several ideas were called down, from not realizing he was there in the first place to not pulling her stake sooner to charging in without a plan to not picking up one of the scythes to use.

Buffy nodded, accepting them at face value, then asked, “What did I do right?”

“You didn’t die,” Faith answered before anyone else.

Buffy looked at her fellow Slayer and nodded. “I didn’t die.

“Which means I stopped the vampire or demon or Hell God or cyborg or whatever other evil creature I’m facing from killing someone else. That’s it. That’s the job. Don’t die.

“When I was Chosen to protect this world, I wasn’t given a choice. In every generation one Slayer is born because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that inane rule. They were powerful men,” Buffy admitted, then pointed to Willow. “This woman is more powerful than all of them combined.”

Willow squirmed nervously under the scrutiny of all the eyes in the room turning to look at her. Tara laid a calming hand on her girlfriend’s arm and gave her a reassuring smile.

“I’m changing the rules,” Buffy continued. “I’m giving you all a choice. Not just one of you. _All_ of you.

“So why in the fuck would anyone want to be a Slayer if they had a choice?” Buffy asked, looking around at all the rapt, wide-eyed faces staring back at her. “Someone actually just asked me today if I could give it up, would I. And the answer is … no,” she continued, looking at Spike, who met her gaze directly and held it for a long moment.

“Why? Because my sister lives in this world, and my friends, and my father,” Buffy explained, looking from Dawn then down the line to Anya, Xander, Willow, and Tara and finally at Giles, meeting his eyes for a long moment when she said ‘father’.

Then Buffy looked back up at the Potentials. “And _you_ live in this world – and I will protect you, and your mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, your friends and their families, and their friends and their families. Someone has to stand between the darkness and the people we love, and the people they love.

“Not everyone can do it, not everyone has the potential inside them. But you do. Every single one of you has it. So, now you can choose your path. Being a Slayer isn’t an easy path, in fact, it’s the hardest road you could choose in this life. It’s frightening and dangerous and painful, and you could die.

“But not many people actually get the chance to know their destiny, let alone fulfill it, or to achieve their full potential, to know the highest purpose of their life. You have that chance. You can choose to rise out of mediocrity, out of normalcy, and make a difference in the world.

“You know what we’re facing. I know Mr. Wood and Gi – _Mr_. Giles have explained it all to you.

“The First is powerful. But we’re more powerful. I believe we can beat this evil. Not when it comes. Not when its army is ready. Now. Tomorrow morning we’re going down into the Hellmouth and we’re finishing this once and for all,” Buffy told the group, waving a hand at the front row to indicate who ‘we’ was.

“So, here’s the part where you make a choice. You can become a Slayer and join us in protecting this world and all the people you love from the rising dark. All you need to do is see Mr. Wood right after this meeting and let him know that you’re ready. And, if you aren’t ready now, that’s fine. I understand that too. There is no judgement here. You don’t have to be ready now. You don’t have to be ready ever. I’ll still be standing here. I’ll still be protecting you and your family and this world, even if I’m standing alone,” Buffy finished.

She walked over and pulled one of the scythes out of the wall furthest from the door as a low murmur began to fill the hall. Back at the center of the room, she handed that scythe to Amanda. She then took the other two that were still on the table and handed one to Faith and one to Spike. Finally, she walked over toward the exit door and pulled the last scythe from the wall there, keeping it for herself. She motioned with her head and Spike stood up, following her out of the room.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, seeing him still clutching his midsection.

“Broke my bloody ribs,” he groused as they made their way out of the Potentials’ training dimension and back into the mansion.

“Well, you crushed my windpipe,” she retorted, rubbing her throat.

“Didn’t seem t’ shorten your St. Crispin's Day speech,” he pointed out.

Buffy gave him a quizzical look and Spike recited, “’We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.  
For he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother.’”

“ _Hmph_ , I think mine was better,” she declared, making their way downstairs. “What did you think?”

“Made me wanna sign up,” he revealed. “D’ya think I’d make a good Slayer?”

Buffy grinned at him. “Sure, once you chop off the extra bits you have dangling between your legs.”

Spike grimaced, his balls retracting up into his body painfully. “Sod that, then. Reckon I’ll have to be happy shagging one.”

“That sounds like a much better plan,” Buffy agreed laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, did you think her speech was better than St. Crispin’s? We’ll find out next. And what about the amulet and Spike insisting on wearing it? Eeep! We still have one chapter before the war. I suggest you enjoy it!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! 
> 
> Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!


	82. The Eve of Destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy takes a little time on the eve of the war with The First to be with her family – for the last time?

* * *

 

**Need a soundtrack or just a little nostalgia?[The Eve of Destruction, Barry McGuire](https://youtu.be/IFZUDQ85bFU)**

* * *

 

Buffy paced nervously back and forth along the length of the conference table in the war room after her ‘recruitment speech’, waiting. It had been nearly an hour since she and Spike had left the assembly, what could be taking so long? Probably all the girls had run screaming from the room and no one wanted to come tell her.

The door opened, and Buffy looked up expectantly, but it was Spike, not Wood or Giles or even Faith.

“Gotcha something t’ take the edge off,” he offered, handing her an unlabeled, pint-sized, clear glass bottle about half full of brown liquid.

Buffy took it from his hand and opened it, taking a sniff. She jerked her face back, crinkling her nose in disgust as she started to cough just from the fumes. “What is it?” she asked through her coughing fit, taking another shallower sniff, which wasn’t any better.

Spike shrugged. “Not sure. Smelled potent enough, though. Maybe turpentine.”

Buffy scowled at him and put the top back on the bottle before handing it back to him. “I think I’ll just be edgy.”

Spike shrugged again and took it back from her. “Suit yerself, pet. Could go upstairs. Reckon I could help take that edge off in other ways,” he offered, wagging his brows at her suggestively.

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t think even you could take this edge off, Spike.

“God! What is taking so long!?” she demanded suddenly, throwing her arms out in frustration as she began to pace back and forth again. “Am I so scary that none of them will come down and tell me that not even one of them wants to be a Slayer? That this whole idea was ridiculous.”

Spike shrugged again. “Must admit, you’re a bit scary, luv. You do have a scythe, which you buried balls deep in a wall from twenty feet away,” he pointed out.

“I don’t think it has balls,” Buffy muttered, turning to head back across the increasingly threadbare carpet.

“You wanted t’ give them a choice, pet,” Spike reminded her gently, setting the bottle of turpentine down on the conference table. “Ya can’t be upset now if they chose mediocrity over pain and almost certain death.”

Buffy sighed and rubbed at her eyes as she turned back to face him. “I know, you’re right. I just thought a few of them might. It’d make the fight tomorrow a lot easier if we just had a few more. We’re sitting here on the eve of the biggest battle I’ve ever fought, and … I’m not sure we can win.”

“We can win, luv,” Spike assured her, beginning to walk down the room toward her. “We’ve got three Slayers, a hot, sexy vampire, four mythical scythes, that little trinket from Angel and—"

Just then the door behind Spike opened, interrupting him, and the team she’d left in the large classroom after her speech filed in, all looking extremely glum.

“Shit…” she mumbled, stopping in her tracks, her stomach curling into tighter and tighter knots. If none of them felt safe enough around her to give her the news alone, that must mean it was really bad.

“Buffy, I’ve been … _elected_ to let you know the outcome of your … errr … Slayer recruitment speech,” Giles informed her gravely. He removed his glasses and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, then began cleaning them slowly and methodically while Buffy waited, breathless and increasingly impatient.

“Get on with it,” she growled after a few moments. “Just say it.”

“Errr, yes, of course,” Giles stammered, replacing his glasses and finally looking up at her, meeting her eyes across the table.

The fact that Faith and Amanda had come to stand near Buffy, while everyone else was on the other side of the table wasn’t lost on the Slayer. They were the muscle to keep her from ripping anyone’s head off in a fit of frustrated rage.  Of course, this whole thing had been her idea and it had been her speech, her stupid plan; the only one needing their head ripped off when it didn’t work would be her.

She should’ve totally gone with a PowerPoint presentation and naked, oily vampires.

Giles cleared his throat then informed her, “As you know, we have sixty-one Potentials here at this time. Two were not in the meeting, having been accidentally concussed with their own nunchucks during training yesterday. Therefore, there were fifty-nine in the room.”

“Just get on with it,” Buffy moaned, her hands balled into nervous, frustrated fists at her side.

“Forty-seven have volunteered, Buffy,” Giles announced, his grim expression morphing into a triumphant smile, his blue eyes suddenly gleaming with delight.

Buffy shook her head, thinking she hadn’t heard him right. “What?”

“Forty-seven,” Wood verified, also smiling as he held up a list. “They aren’t all ready, though. Some have only been here a few days,” he continued quickly. “But I’d approve thirty-one of them for immediate … uhhhh … Slayer-hood.”

“What?” Buffy repeated, looking around the room at everyone. They were all smiling now.

“You did it, B! Personally, I think we would’ve gotten them all if you’d gone with the oily vampire PowerPoint thing, but …” Faith teased, shrugging.

“Oh, my God … forty-seven Slayers?” Buffy breathed, stunned. Her eyes traveled over all her friends’ smiling faces to finally find Spike. He was staring at her with a profound look of awe and pride in his expressive, blue eyes, like she’d just moved the mountain to Muhammad.

“You will need to decide how many you want to accompany you tomorrow,” Giles told her. “I would suggest we perhaps narrow it down to the most qualified … perhaps twenty or so?”

Buffy looked back at him, her mind racing, but she finally nodded. “Yeah … I … ummm … that would be … amazing! Do we have enough weapons?”

“We will as soon as D’Hoffryn opens us a portal to the armory over on the army base,” Xander assured her.

“He’s supposed to be here in about an hour,” Anya explained, looking at Buffy. “He’ll get all the new portals up and ready to activate, and that other, super-secret surprise for Spike that you insisted on … that I probably shouldn’t have just mentioned since it’s a super-secret surprise and Spike’s standing right here, and you said you’d rip my guts out through my nose if I ruined it.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed. “You haven’t actually told The First about any of our super-secret surprises, have you?”

Anya shook her head emphatically. “I’m dead, remember? You have all us dead people trapped in here behind the wards like rats in a cage gnawing at our own tails, waiting for you to finally do something other than give speeches, eat all the pastries, and screw Spike.”

“Can I rip her guts out through her nose now?” Buffy asked no one in particular.

“No, we need her for the whole D’Hoffryn portal thing – he likes her for some reason. You can do that on Wednesday,” Faith assured Buffy.

Buffy nodded and gave Anya a wide, gleaming smile. “You may want to stay away from me on Wednesday.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Three hours later, everything that could be done to prepare for the next day had been done. The Potentials who had volunteered to join the Slayer Army had been magically inducted into the ranks by Willow and Tara, The Guardians. The strongest and most well-trained of the new Slayers had been selected to join the group in the Hellmouth; the others would remain behind with the other civilians just in case things went really badly. The plan of attack had been gone over, explained, questioned, tweaked and agreed upon. Weapons had been acquired and Buffy’s final secret weapon had been smuggled in via the portals D’Hoffryn had set up.

Nothing was left to be done now but wait for the morning and the impending war.

Up at their room, Buffy turned the handle and opened the door, stepping in and to the side as she entered so Spike could get the full view.

“What the …?” he started, stepping in and looking around the room, which was definitely not a replica of 1630 Revello Drive any longer.

“Surprise!” Buffy exclaimed sarcastically, since Anya had totally blown it earlier. They’d managed to keep the exact surprise a secret, at least, despite his constant niggling at her and Anya for hints and clues.

Spike let his eyes roam slowly over the room. It certainly wasn’t anything like the surprise he’d envisioned when Anya had spilled the beans. Everything was very bright and modern, with chrome and leather furnishings, straight lines and shiny, black marble floors. The color scheme was basic black, white, and red, and it extended throughout the whole space, which was an open floorplan including a kitchen to his right, a dining area, and a living room to his left. There were no knickknacks, no photos, no mementos, not one thing out of place, not one speck of dust anywhere. Everything matched in an ultra-modern, almost clinical, sort of way.  It couldn’t have been more different than Buffy’s house if she’d tried. Maybe she had.

The other huge difference was that the exterior walls were all glass, floor to ceiling, and not a window-covering to be seen – no curtains, no blinds, no awnings. He didn’t even see any blankets or quilts that could be hung up over them to block the sun. Outside the wall of glass was a deck, and beyond that a white sand beach and a clear, azure ocean as far as the eye could see. Rolling waves kissed the shore in a slow, gentle rhythm and the perfume of fresh, salty sea air filled his nostrils.  And despite it being late afternoon where they’d just come from in Sunnydale, the sun was high in the sky here.

“I … errr … well, pet, I’m not sure glass walls and bright sun are a good look for me,” he stammered, trying to not be negative about the change in scenery.

“Actually, I think it’s a perfect look for us,” Buffy told him, closing the door behind them and leaving Sunnydale and the coming war far away.

She took the scythe from his hand and placed it with hers on the black marble breakfast bar in the kitchen. He followed her, still looking warily at the windows and trying to estimate when the sun would be shining full-force into the room.

Buffy turned and tugged on the back of Spike’s duster; he shrugged, letting her take it off him, his mind occupied with the problem at hand – how to avoid all that sunshine. After laying the duster over one of the barstools at the counter, she took his hand in hers and led him across the spotless floor to a glass door on the other side of the room.

“Trust me,” she implored him when he hesitated, pulling back on her hand when she stepped out onto the deck into the midday sun.

Spike swallowed hard and braced himself as she tugged him gently forward into the glowing rays. His face went through a myriad of emotions from trepidation to confusion to relief and finally to elation when nothing happened. He didn’t burn. His skin didn’t begin to smoke. In fact, it felt … nice. Warm and a little tingly against his face and arms.

“It’s not our sun … it’s … I don’t know, pocket dimension sun, the non-frying kind,” Buffy enlightened him.

“Yeah, kinda figured that out, luv,” he replied, closing his eyes and lifting his face to the bright, warm light. “Bloody amazing.”

Buffy smiled, her green eyes dancing with joy at being able to give him this, to give _them_ this. One day, or at least a few hours, in the sun before hell, literally, broke loose.

“So, is it awesome or what?” Dawn gushed, seeming to appear from nowhere and giddily bouncing on her toes at Spike’s elbow.

Spike opened his eyes and looked down, surprised by her sudden appearance. She was dressed for the beach with a wide brimmed hat, and a gauzy, short coverup which did very little to conceal the bright pink bikini she had on beneath it.  There was a colorful canvas bag at her feet overflowing with towels and blankets and other sundries that Spike assumed were beach-related. Apart from one short holiday to Brighton when he was five or six, he’d never been to the beach … well, not in the daytime, at least. 

“Brilliant,” he admitted, letting himself get caught up in her bubbling joy.

“I helped Buffy pick it out,” she explained, reaching in her bag and pulling out a pair of Dodger-blue swim trunks that were decorated with a sky-blue hibiscus flower design. “Here!” she gushed, handing them to him.

“Errr …” Spike hesitated, reaching for the trunks reluctantly. “Thought I’d just…”

“No party-pooping!” Dawn ordered, shoving the trunks into his hand and turning him back toward the door. “Go change. There’s a bedroom through that door,” she directed him, pointing to a door that he hadn’t noticed before that was in the wall at the back of the kitchen where all the cabinets and appliances were – the only wall in the place that wasn’t glass.

“And here,” the girl added, pulling more fabric from the bag and handing to Buffy. “Go make sure he doesn’t run away.”

Buffy laughed and took the swimsuit Dawn had gotten for her, which seemed little more than a few triangles of white fabric connected with string.  Buffy held the scraps up by the strings and quirked a brow at her sister. “Is this for me or Spike?”

Dawn shrugged, looking smug. “I thought it might lure him out of the house,” the girl admitted. “Now, go get changed … and no hanky-panky! It’s beach day!”

Buffy followed Spike into the bedroom, which was the only part of the house that did have curtains over the floor to ceiling windows. He was sitting on the bed studying the swim trunks, looking less than pleased.

“It could be worse,” Buffy told him when he looked up at her. “She could’ve gotten you strings to wear.”

Spike pursed his lips, looking at her bikini, which Buffy held up in demonstration. “Got an idea … why don’t we just stay here and not wear anything?”

Buffy walked over and wrapped her arms around his neck, straddling his legs and sitting down in his lap. Spike rested his hands on her hips as she dropped her lips to his and kissed him slowly and thoroughly, taking her time exploring his lips and tongue and teeth. She moaned contentedly as the kiss ended and rested her forehead on his, both of their eyes still closed, lost in the sweet euphoria of the kiss.

“It would mean a lot to Dawn and to me, if you’d come out and spend time on the beach,” she told him finally, pulling back to look into his eyes. “Just one normal day … or … afternoon, at least.”

Spike considered her a moment, then nodded, understanding. “Do I have t’ wear short pants like a ponce?”

“Yes, it’s part of the whole ‘normal’ thing,” she assured him. “And they’re perfectly nice swim trunks, they aren’t even that short. You’ll look hot in them.”

Spike barked out a sarcastic, disagreeing laugh. “The tortures I endure for you Summers girls … bloody humiliating, it is. If you tell a single soul, I will kill you,” he warned sternly.

Buffy ran two fingers across her pursed lips as if zipping them closed before planting a hard, fast kiss on his lips and standing up. “We love you, too.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Last one in is a rotten egg!” Dawn declared giddily as she dropped her bag on the sand and began dashing for the waves, flinging her hat off and pulling her flimsy little coverup off over her head as she ran.

Buffy laughed and started after her, catching up easily but not passing. The two girls hit the water at the same time, splashing in a few feet before diving beneath the next breaking wave.  They emerged a few feet beyond where they dove in, laughing and splashing in the cool, clear water.

“Spike’s the rotten one,” Dawn declared, looking around.

“Where is he?” Buffy wondered, also looking around.

Dawn screamed as something grabbed her legs and yanked her under, releasing her almost immediately. She spluttered and choked on the salty water when she surfaced, wiping her hair out of her face and looking around frantically in the clear water for whatever monster had attacked her.

“There!” she screeched, pointing toward Buffy, but it was too late, the Slayer had been dragged under.

Spike ran his hands all along Buffy’s body as he pulled her under, touching as much of her bare skin as he could before darting away beneath the cover of the waves.

Buffy resurfaced, also spluttering water from her mouth and nose, and wiping it from her eyes. “That’s so not fair!” she exclaimed, twirling around to try and find where he’d gone.

Suddenly Dawn screamed, and Buffy turned just in time to see her rocketed up out of the water several feet into the air. Spike’s entire torso broke the surface of the water as he propelled the girl up and out of the clear, salty surf. Before she splashed down several feet away, he was gone again.

Dawn’s scream was cut off when she hit, but she surfaced a moment later laughing and choking at the same time. “Do it again!” she yelled, turning around in the deep water to try and find where he’d gone. “Spike! Do it again!”

Buffy squealed in surprise when Spike grabbed her from behind pulled her under the water again. He spun her in his arms and captured her mouth in a wet, salty kiss beneath the waves before lifting her back up into the sunshine, their lips still caught in the breathless kiss. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and her legs around his hips as water sluiced down from their hair, over their faces and down their necks, dripping like sparkling gems back into the warm, clear ocean.

Spike tangled his fingers into her long, golden tresses as they bobbed gently in the soft waves, their tongues tasting and teasing the other in a slow, sensuous dance.

“Break it up!” Dawn yelled at them, splashing them with torrent after torrent of water. “Swim now! Kiss later!”

Buffy laughed against Spike’s lips and pulled back, her joyful eyes meeting his in the bright sunlight. His hair curled wildly around his face, droplets falling from the ends like rain, his expressive eyes reflecting Buffy’s joy and laughter back to her a thousand-fold.

“You look pretty good in the sun,” she told him, grinning. “I was a little worried.”

Spike quirked a brow at her. “Were ya, then?”

“You know, I thought maybe you wouldn’t be as handsome in the light,” she explained.

“Seen me in the sun before, as I recall,” Spike reminded her.

Buffy shrugged. “Yeah, but I hated you then, so I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Hate, was it?” Spike challenged, smirking.

“Well … professional hostility,” Buffy amended, smiling. “You _were_ evil, after all.”

“Not evil now?” he wondered, teasing.

“Welll… you have your moments,” she admitted, laughing.

“But not a troll?” he asked, curling his tongue against his teeth salaciously.

“No, not very troll-y at all,” she agreed, still grinning.

“Too bad I can’t say the same fer you, luv,” he mocked. “Is that a wart on the tip of your nose? Never noticed that before … and do you have hair growin’ outta your ears?”

“You rat!” Buffy exclaimed, slapping him on the chest.

Spike laughed and lifted her up, his hands clamped on her thin waist, and tossed her like he had Dawn, up and back, to splash down several feet away.

“Me! Do me now!” Dawn exclaimed, bouncing through the chest-deep water on her toes over to him.

“Beg pardon?” he squeaked out, his voice rising several octaves higher than normal, cocking an inquiring brow at her.

“No ... no … I mean … throw me … not _do_ … no _doing_ ,” Dawn stammered embarrassed, shaking her head and waving her arms back and forth emphatically.  “Just … throw … in the air … _weeeee_!” she explained, flinging her arms up and out to mimic throwing.

Spike smirked and nodded, taking an unneeded breath and letting it out in a sigh of relief.

“Really high!” the girl requested as Spike went down under the water and lifted her up by her feet.

Dawn squealed in delight as he rocketed her up out of the water into the air, sending her flying for a few amazing seconds before she splashed down again, laughing.

“AGAIN!” she yelled the moment she came back to the surface.

Spike looked over at Buffy, who was watching happily from a couple of feet away. “What is it with you Summers girls? Bloody insatiable, the lot of you.”

Buffy laughed and shrugged. “I guess us trolls just have a thing for lily-white vampires in swim trunks.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike collapsed down on his back on the blanket Buffy and Dawn had laid out in the sand, letting his eyes close and draping one arm over his eyes against the sun. At this rate, he’d be too bloody tired to fight evil in the morning. Using his vampire strength as Dawn’s personal rocket launcher was bloody exhausting.

Buffy and Dawn sat down on the blanket next to him. Their skin glistened in the bright sun as salty water dripped slowly from their hair, running in small rivers down their bodies to the blanket below.

Dawn pulled out a bottle of sunscreen and began to apply it to her shoulders, face, and chest.

“I don’t think you actually need that here,” Buffy pointed out, reaching for a towel to dry her hair with.

Dawn shrugged. “It just doesn’t feel right if I don’t smell like Coppertone at the beach,” she revealed. “Do you remember Mom slathering it all over us when we were kids?”

Buffy nodded and laughed. “I think she thought if she put it on thicker, it would have more SPF or something.”

“It must’ve been SPF 982 by the time she was done,” Dawn agreed, grinning.

“Then dad would take us into the water and it would all wash off and she’d have to start all over,” Buffy continued.

Dawn laughed. “She must’ve bought the stuff by the gallon!”

Buffy nodded, still smiling, lost in the memory. Except it wasn’t a real memory, it was something the monks had implanted when they’d created Dawn to hide the Key from Glory. But it felt real. It felt as real as this moment. Buffy wasn’t sure if that actually happened, only with just her, or if it was something the monks made up from scratch. It was more than a little disconcerting, but she’d come to grips with that feeling over the last couple of years … _mostly_.

“Do you think Dad knows?” Dawn asked interrupting Buffy’s thoughts, her voice suddenly solemn.

Buffy turned and looked at her sister, her brows furrowed in question.

“That we’re … freaks? That I’m not even … real. Do you think that’s why he never came back?” Dawn explained.

“No, Dawnie, we’re not … you _are_ real! It’s not you …” Buffy sighed, and looked back out at the waves, watching them lap gently against the sandy shore. “I don’t know why he never came back. I’m sure he must’ve had some reason. I thought it was me for a long time, but, now, I just don’t know.” _Other than being a shiftless, worthless asshole_ , she added to herself silently.

“I only have good memories of him,” Dawn whispered, also looking out over the waves. “But those aren’t real. What’s the truth?”

Buffy shook her head slowly and sighed. “I think … he’s human. Not all good or all bad, just … human.”

“What kind of father doesn’t at least check on his kids, though?” Dawn wondered. “When Mom died you tried to find him … I mean … he didn’t call back until …”

“I had died too,” Buffy whispered.

“That’s just messed up,” Dawn concluded. “I don’t think he loves us.”

“Maybe not,” Buffy agreed dourly, looking over at her sister. “But there are lots of people who do. I love you, and Spike loves you. Giles, Xander, Willow, and Tara … we all love you, Dawnie. I promise you are loved, more than you could possibly know.

“We don’t get any say in our blood family, but good friends are the family we get to choose ourselves. That freely given love is thicker than blood, Dawnie, trust me,” Buffy assured her, reaching out and tugging the girl’s Coppertone-slick shoulder over toward her. 

Dawn leaned over into Buffy’s embrace, settling her long, dripping hair against her sister’s shoulder. “I don’t want to lose you, Buffy,” Dawn whispered through her emotion-constricted throat.

Buffy tugged a little tighter against her sister’s shoulder in a reassuring gesture. “Spike promised that we’ll make lots more memories together, all of us, so you know what that means, right?”

Dawn nodded against Buffy’s shoulder, taking a deep, relieved breath. “Spike keeps his promises,” she murmured.

“So, there’s nothing to worry about, right?” Buffy concluded.

Spike felt his stomach churn and his unbeating heart constrict listening to them as he pretended to sleep. If he ever met Hank Summers he wasn’t sure if his soul would be powerful enough to stop him from ripping the man to shreds. He would give anything to give Buffy children, to slather them with sunscreen and wash it off again in the waves. And this man took that gift and squandered it, turning it into heartbreak for his girls.

Spike had felt so sure of his promise to Buffy when he’d made it. That dream of children, of a family with Buffy, it seemed so much more than a fantasy in that moment, but now … he wasn’t as certain. Spike took a deep, unneeded breath and let it out slowly, resolved. No matter what happened, Dawn would not lose her sister. Period. No matter what he had to do, he would make bloody sure of it.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Oh, my God, I think that was actually better than the Bronze’s!” Buffy declared, popping the last piece of the deep-fried flowering onion into her mouth with a flourish. “How do I get a prisoner that cooks like this?”

“Reckon you could kidnap ‘im from Red,” Spike suggested, taking the last hot wing off the platter that Andrew had brought out to the beach for them. They sat in a circle on the blanket around the plates of finger food as the sun hovered low in the sky, nearly ready to set.

“Ooo! That’s a great idea! Let’s do that on Wednesday,” Buffy suggested.

“I thought you were disemboweling Anya on Wednesday,” Dawn reminded her as she picked up a hot, freshly-fried donut hole, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and popped it into her mouth.

“Oh, right, I forgot. Thursday, then,” Buffy agreed, reaching for one of the scrumptious desserts.

“We’ll need to go shopping, too,” Dawn observed. “We have, like … nothing.”

“Friday for shopping,” Buffy decided before letting out a soft moan of approval around the soft, warm, sweet treat. “God, this is so good! I’m changing to kidnapping Andrew on Wednesday, I can kill Anya anytime.”

Dawn laughed, nabbing another morsel of the sugar-coated fried dough as she turned and looked out over the water at the quickly setting sun. “Look, Buffy … do you remember what Mom used to do?”

Buffy turned and watched as the sun inched closer and closer to the far horizon, a soft smile curving her lips. “She’d tell us that when the sun hit the water that it would start to boil, so we’d have to get out and go home then. I think it was the only way she could get us to leave without a huge tantrum.”

Buffy watched and, just as the edge of the sun flattened mirage-like against the horizon, she let out a low, soft ‘hiss’, as if the sun were beginning to boil the ocean.

Dawn smiled and looked over at her sister, their eyes meeting and holding for a long moment. “I miss her too, Dawn,” Buffy whispered. “But everything’s gonna be okay.”

Dawn nodded and looked back at the horizon, watching the sky and clouds come to life as the sun slowly sank behind the ocean. Shades of orange, pink, and mauve danced over the clouds and across the sky in a symphony of light and color as the sun slowly gave way to a sky full of sparkling, twinkling stars.

Spike reached a hand out and clasped it over Buffy’s, making her look over at him. Her eyes were soft, full of love and hope, and they drew him in like a magnet. He leaned forward and touched a gentle kiss to her lips as the last sliver of sun dropped below the horizon, casting them back into their natural world, the realm of darkness.

Dawn yawned loudly, making a big production of stretching. “Oh, look at the time! How did it get so late?” she wondered, gathering up the empty plates and putting them back on the tray Andrew had brought. She also grabbed up the basket containing the last few donut holes to take.

“I should take these back and wash them. Can’t fight evil with dirty dishes in the sink,” she continued, standing up abruptly and slipping her coverup back on. “So, I’ll just see you guys in the morning, cos I know you probably need to rest. You know, get those eight hours of sleep so you’ll be ready to kick evil’s ass tomorrow,” she rambled, picking up the tray.

Spike grabbed the basket of sweets off the tray, giving her an innocent smile. “Can’t sleep properly with low blood sugar, can I?”

“Right, okay, yeah, goodnight!” she called, as she began rushing up the beach back toward the house, not letting Buffy or Spike get another word in.

“That was subtle,” Buffy observed, smiling as she watched her sister hurry into the house and out of sight.

“It was quite artful and wonderfully considerate of her. Did she believe I would be unable to control myself and simply ravish you right here before her in a fit of shameless passion?”

Buffy turned her head sharply to look at her husband. “William?” she questioned, her brow furrowed in confusion.

William gave her a small, pleased smile, tilting his head in acknowledgement. “Hello, Buffy,” he whispered, his eyes meeting and holding hers tenderly as he reached out and took one of her hands in his.

“Oh my gosh, _William_ ,” Buffy cried, launching herself at him and knocking him onto his back on the blanket. Her lips met his as she shifted, straddling his thinly-clad hips with hers, kissing him deeply. His hands roamed slowly over her nearly-bare body, from her shoulders down over the curve of her waist and the flare of her hips, then back again, moaning in pleasure as he returned the kiss ardently.

The kiss broke slowly with soft sucks and nibbles and moans of pleasure. Buffy pushed up a bit, looking down on him. It was Spike, but not. There was a softness in his eyes that was different than Spike’s, and the curve of his lips was somehow sweeter, less salacious.

“Not that I’m complaining or anything, but … why are you here? How did you get past the demon?” Buffy asked a bit worriedly.

William smiled smugly, his blue eyes dancing in the starlight. “I pointed out that without me, he would be unable to wear that trinket Liam brought you. Therefore, I have him over the proverbial barrel. He is extraordinarily vexed.”

“And you are quite pleased with yourself,” she observed, smiling down at him.

“Well, outwitting a dullard like Spike isn’t dreadfully difficult, but it is quite satisfying to see him splutter with indignation,” he replied proudly.

Buffy laughed and shook her head. “Well, now that you’re here, just what did you have in mind, my dear, sweet William?” she teased, wagging her brows at him suggestively.

William turned and reached for the basket of donut holes that Spike had nabbed off Dawn’s tray. “I do believe I’d love a few more of this sugary fried dough,” he replied in a serious tone, making Buffy ‘ _hmph’_ and sit back on his lap, crossing her arms over her chest indignantly.

William pushed up onto one elbow and plucked one of the sweet treats from the basket. “They are absolutely delectable,” he asserted, popping one into his mouth. He closed his eyes and moaned in pleasure as he chewed slowly, savoring the warm, sweet dough.

“You outwitted the demon so you could eat donut holes?” Buffy asked, feigning annoyance. She could feel his need growing harder and more urgent beneath the thin material of his swim trunks. Sweets were clearly not his only desire.

William looked at her, swallowing the last of the treat, meeting her hard gaze with an amused gleam in his blue eyes. “Please forgive my abhorrent manners,” he begged, extending the basket toward her. “Would you care for one?”

“You think you’re cute,” Buffy accused, taking one and popping it into her mouth.

“I wouldn’t presume…” William demurred, taking the last two sweets from the basket before tossing it aside.

“Hey!” Buffy objected. “Don’t be piggy!”

William smiled indulgently, popping one of the treats into his mouth before lifting the last one to her lips, letting her take it from his sugar-coated fingers. Buffy clasped his wrist and held his hand in place, gently licking and sucking the sugar from his digits. She could feel his need growing harder and more urgent by the moment beneath her as he watched her make love to his fingers.

“God, Buffy,” he moaned, his teasing pretense completely gone.

Buffy released his finger from her lips with a small ‘pop’ and let go of his wrist, reaching up behind her neck to untie the string of her bikini. The thin straps slipped down her golden skin, revealing her breasts to him in the soft starlight.

“You are so beautiful … so, so beautiful,” William whispered, letting his hand slide slowly down her warm skin to cup her breast. “I dream of you, of touching you again, of your silken skin, gentle curves, your heat, your passion.”

Buffy untied the string behind her back and let the top fall completely off before leaning down and kissing him again. Soft sugar still clung to his lips, a sweet surprise against her wandering tongue. William dropped down off the elbow he’d been propped up on and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her body against his as his tongue tangled deliciously with hers.

“Make love to me, William, here under the stars,” Buffy murmured against his lips.

“Buffy, my love, I desire you so much … missed your touch, missed the taste of you, the feel of you against me,” he breathed back.

Buffy pulled back slowly, pushing back and then up to her feet, straddling him so she could wriggle out of her bikini bottoms. William sat up and covered her hands with his as she pressed the thin straps down the outside of her thighs, taking over the job from her. His hands glided gently down from the swell of her hip to her strong, shapely thighs, getting lost in the feel of her body beneath his palms. The fabric slid easily down over her knees and he pressed it down the remainder of the way to her sandy feet.

Buffy lifted one foot, then the other for him to remove the bottoms completely. Before she set the second foot back down onto the blanket, William caught her leg behind the knee and lifted it as he leaned forward, draping it over his shoulder.

“Buffy…” he moaned, his voice a low, melodious murmur in the dark as he pressed his mouth against her sweet mound and slipped his tongue between her labia, tasting her.

Buffy’s eyes fluttered closed and she braced herself on his shoulders as he flicked his tongue over her clit, making her supporting leg quiver beneath her dangerously. She tasted of salty sea and sunshine and desire, and William thought he’d never tasted anything quite so beautiful. Her hips tilted, thrusting gently against his mouth as his hands began to roam over her thighs, her hips, and around to the swell of her ass.

Her clit throbbed in need, her channel pulsing with desire as her honeyed nectar flowed from her body, coating his tongue. With one hand he grasped the soft flesh of her hip, steadying her, while he slid the other between her legs to join his tongue, making her moan and shiver beneath his touch.

“Tell me …” he begged of her, his voice a gentle rumble against her heated, swollen skin. “How do I make you feel?”

“God, William … loved … you make me feel so loved. Like you are heaven and I … _oh … God … ooooo_ … I am floating … _Jesus … fuck … yes_ …  in your … heart.  _Oh, God … baby … fuck … yes … don’t stop … please … like that … oh, God …_

His fingers pressed into her, one, then two, then three, pumping deep into her slick, yearning channel as his tongue made love to her clit, teasing and tasting her, lifting her higher with each stroke. Feeling her tremble against him as her fingers dug in to his strong shoulders and hearing her breathless pleas and dancing heartbeat were nearly more than he could stand. His cock ached for her, the thin fabric of the swim trunks in danger of being rent apart at the seams.

“Oh, God, William … harder … just … please … a little … bit … fuck … God … yes, baby! Fuck, yes!” Buffy breathed, feeling the edge hovering there, within reach, so very close.

He slammed his fingers up into her harder, pumping in and out of her spasming channel. Her body rippled around his digits, her slick juices coating his fingers and dripping deliciously down his palm.  He thrust is tongue against her clit, licking and sucking, desperate to feel her release perhaps even more than she was.

Buffy’s breath caught in her throat, her body riding the waves of pleasure William was pouring into her, and then the wave broke, and she fell from the crest, floating in the heart of heaven. Her body tensed, every muscle and sinew taut and hard in that moment before her sweet release.

“God, yessssss!” she cried as her hips began to thrust frantically against his mouth, taking all his love and diving into it, drowning in the blue depths of devotion that was this man that she loved.

Buffy’s supporting leg trembled and quivered beneath her as lightning bolts of pure bliss shook her body. William’s fingers gripped her hip, keeping her upright even when her knee buckled beneath her.  He pulled his cum-soaked fingers from her tight channel and lowered her down slowly, coming over with her as she rolled onto her back on the blanket, the soft sand beneath embracing her like a tender lover.

Buffy still had one leg hooked over his shoulder, the other splayed out to the side on the blanket as she lay panting for air that seemed suddenly in short supply. William was looking down at her when she blinked her eyes open, drowning her in love and adoration that shone in his eyes in the starlight.

“I need you, Buffy … need to be inside you,” he breathed desperately.

“Yes, William … please …” she whispered back, as she reached down to press his swim trunks off his hips, freeing his hard, aching cock from the confines of the fabric.

He lifted her other leg up and over his shoulder before desperately, achingly, but ever-so-slowly sinking down into her. Her warmth engulfed him like a blanket of love, of yearning, of desperate need, showering him with sparks of pleasure that danced over his skin. Her soft, supple walls wrapped around his hardness like a velvet glove, molding to every bump, very bulge of vein, pulling him deeper, inch by tantalizing inch.

“Oh, Buffy,” he moaned, his eyes locking on hers as he slipped gently into her heaven beneath the sea of stars twinkling brightly above them.

“I love you … God, I love you,” William swore as his hips met hers. His balls came to rest against her sweet ass, his cock engulfed in the depths of her fire, which blazed around his cold column of steel in the most delicious way imaginable.

“I love you, too, baby,” Buffy replied, reaching a hand up to smooth some of his curls back from his eyes, which were shining down on her just as brilliantly as the billions of stars above them. “Forever, baby. You’re my soul … my heart.”

William pressed closer until their lips touched, folding her in half, opening her to him completely. The kiss was gentle and loving, tender beyond measure. Their lips sucked lightly against the other’s, tongues darting out, tasting, teasing, teeth nibbling softly on full lips. Soft moans of pleasure passed between them, swallowed by the kiss, fanning the flames that licked lustfully at their bodies.

And then he began to move, rocking his hips against her, slowly pulling out of her tight embrace before pushing back in, burying his cock in her to the hilt.

“You are heaven… everything about you. My warm, sweet angel,” he whispered against her lips before pulling back to look down in her eyes as their bodies parted and joined in the eternal dance of loving devotion.

Buffy smiled softly up at him, wrapping her arms around his neck, drinking in the melodious rumble of his voice, his mellifluous words, the silky feel of his body against hers.

“Spike might disagree with that,” Buffy pointed out, still smiling, getting lost in the pleasure he was pouring over her. “You must know … I’m sometimes … a real bitch.”

William shook his head, his curls bouncing lightly as he moved. “No. He would not. You are his eternity as well as mine. You, my darling Buffy, are the only thing we are in complete agreement on. We are your willing slaves, until time stops, the sun dies, and hell freezes over.”

Buffy bit her bottom lip delectably, her lashes fluttering closed as William ground down on her clit, sending bright bursts of ecstasy surging out in all directions, like ripples in a pond.

“I don’t want a slave. I just want you … both of you, all of you, beside me, just the way you are,” Buffy breathed, her body tingling with pleasure as he lifted her back up toward the star-filled heaven high above. “You’re all I need. Forever.”

His lips captured hers again, this time more urgently, ardently, their lust rising on the wings of angels. The rhythm of his thrusts into her sped up, the power of them growing with each successive thrust as his balls slapped deliciously against her ass.

“Tell me you love me,” William pled breathlessly against her lips.

“I love you … I love you … I love you,” Buffy replied as her body responded to the urgency in his voice and his body.

“Say my name, Buffy … let me hear you say my name,” he begged, switching to short, fast strokes, then back to long, hard, deep plunges into her throbbing sex.

“I love you, William … love you … Will … William,” she gasped out as her body began to shudder and quiver beneath him.

“I love you, Buffy, deeply, madly … always love you … my heart, my soul … my everything,” he swore against her heated skin, grinding down on her clit with each powerful thrust of pure lust.

“Yes … yes … God, yes. More! Harder!” she demanded, feeling the bright, twinkling stars that had been in the sky fall to earth and begin to burst deliciously through her whole body like pinpricks of ecstasy blazing across her skin.

William needed no further invitation, his desire for her on the verge of overwhelming him. He drew back and slammed down with all his power. He drove his cock deeply into her velvet sheath before pulling back and thrusting forward again and again, hammering down with demonic force and unbridled lust.

“Fuck! Yes!” she screamed, her nails digging into the bulging cord of hard muscle on either side of his neck. “Cumming! William! Cum! Jesus … fuck! Yes! Cum! Yessss!” she demanded as she was rocketed up into those stars, as if she were one of them, burning brightly with the molten fire of pure passion.

Her words unraveled him wholly and completely, every ounce of control evaporating like wisps of fog beneath a burning sun. William let go then, the desire to fill her with his seed consuming him utterly as he drove feverishly into her throbbing, constricting channel.

An incoherent stream of strangled curses, declarations, moans, hisses, and growls flowed from them both as William joined her amongst the stars with one last, desperate thrust. His balls constricted, erupting violently, shooting his tempestuous release into the depths of her core. His cock jerked and convulsed deep within her supple channel, swelling with each volley of tangy, ropey spunk that battered against the entrance to her womb.

Buffy’s channel squeezed and released spasmodically, milking every drop of cream from his body, lost in the ecstasy of their coupling. There were no thoughts in those moments. No good or evil. No battles to fight. No newbie Slayers to worry about. No second-guessing her decisions. There was nothing but this.  This moment. This feeling. This love. This nirvana. Nothing but stars of absolute bliss bursting behind her eyelids, fire burning her body in rapture, and a soul-deep connection to the man, the vampire, who danced every dance in her arms.

The ground seemed to be quaking beneath her when she slipped back to Earth from the stratosphere, but then she realized it was her, not the ground, that was trembling. William released her legs from his shoulders and they fell limply to the blanket on either side of him, every muscle quivering with the power of her climax. Buffy gasped and panted against his shoulder as he dropped down atop her, wrapping his arms beneath her, smothering her with his weight. She desperately wanted him to move so she could get air into her lungs – but not enough to release him. She clung to him too tightly for him to even shift the slightest bit to one side, and he made no move to even try.

“My God …” she gasped out against his cool skin, realizing that he, too, was trembling.

“My Goddess,” he breathed back, nuzzling her neck, kissing and nibbling at her heated skin languidly.

Buffy huffed out a small laugh, her body slowly beginning to melt beneath him like a candle in the desert sun, every muscle, sinew, and cell utterly spent, turned to jelly.

“I love you, William,” she murmured blearily, her eyes falling closed as the aftershocks slowed to gentle, pleasurable tremors coursing through her body and tingling her flushed skin. 

“I love you, Buffy,” he replied in a deep, gravelly whisper, his breath cool against her heated skin, as he, too, began to slip into the waiting arms of Morpheus beneath a sea of stars. “Always. Forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, GUYS … We’re going to war next! Hang on to your hats and check your safety harnesses! The ride is about to kick back into gear!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! 
> 
> Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!


	83. DEFCON 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy, using every possible resource she can recruit, takes the offensive, bringing the battle to The First Evil. But first, coffee.

* * *

 

The night had been perfect. Buffy and William had spent it beneath the twinkling blanket of silver stars, beside the gently rolling ocean, cradled in the soft sand. They’d talked, they’d laughed, they’d made love, and they’d slept peacefully in each other’s arms, the worry of the coming battle far from their minds.

Buffy was awoken with a tender kiss. She blinked her eyes open to find William laying on his side next to her, his head propped up in one hand, watching her.  The waves lapped gently against the shore nearby and a shorebird called out into the predawn from somewhere down the beach.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he whispered, reaching one hand out to touch her cheek gently.

“Hey, handsome,” she rasped back in a sleep-roughened voice.

“I will need to depart soon. I wanted to say goodbye,” he told her, his eyes roaming slowly over her face as if to memorize every line, every detail.

Buffy nodded solemnly and pushed herself up to sitting, running a hand through her wild, tousled, salt-stiffened hair. “Can you watch the sunrise with me?”

William nodded and also sat up, opening his arms to her. Buffy slid between his legs and leaned back against his hard chest as his arms came around her gently, holding her in a loving embrace. He rested his chin on her shoulder and tilted his head against hers, his eyes falling closed as he breathed in the scent of her, pulling it deep inside his heart to hold forever.

The sun was but a whisper in the eastern sky, a gentle nudge of light against the stars that still twinkled brightly above. They sat in peaceful silence, listening to the champagne waves wash softly against the shore at their back, watching the stars begin to dwindle. The sky began to shift from the bottomless black of night to a deep amethyst, and then to a soft mauve as their realm of darkness gave way to the dominion of light.

“I shall love you always, Buffy. Please do remember that,” he whispered against the soft skin of her neck, tasting her one last time, memorizing every detail.

“I love you too, William,” she whispered back, as if speaking too loudly would stop the sun from rising or the waves from lapping at the shore. “I won’t forget, but you’ll be back to tell me again.”

He nodded against her, clamping his eyes closed against the flood of emotion that surged through him. “Yes,” he agreed, pressing the word through his tight throat with herculean effort.

“William?” Buffy questioned, leaning to one side and turning back to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, blinking back the dampness from his eyes, and gave her a small smile. “Nothing, my love. Just promise to remember how much I love you.”

“I do … I will, I promise, but…” Buffy began, but her words were cut off when his lips touched hers in a kiss as soft and gentle as the caress of the ocean against the sand.

Suddenly, a bright light streaked across the sky. They both turned to look in time to see the tail of a shooting star cross above them, curving down as it sped toward the azure sea.

“Make a wish,” Buffy breathed, returning her gaze to her lover, meeting his eyes ardently.

A smile quirked the corners of his mouth, his eyes glittering now with pure love. “Mine is here, in my arms. I could not wish for anything more.”

Buffy pressed her warm palm against his cheek and kissed him again, a tender sharing of emotion that filled her with a tingling, glowing orb of vibrant, rich love in the center of her chest.

As the first rays of sun crept slowly across the beach toward them, the kiss changed subtly, becoming more urgent, more desperate, more breathless. Spike’s arms wrapped around her tighter as he turned and pushed her to the side and then back down onto the sand, rolling over with her until their bodies were pressed together, head to toe. The kiss broke with the movement and their eyes met and held for a long moment as the sun topped the peak of the house and bathed them in its warmth.

“Hello, cutie,” Spike greeted her, a teasing glint in his blue eyes.

“Hello, cutie yourself,” Buffy replied, smiling up at him and wrapping her arms around his neck.

“You do know what I want right now, dontcha?” he asked, shifting his hips against her suggestively.

“Ummm … freshly made donut holes with powdered sugar to dunk in your blood?” she guessed.

“Too right!” he agreed, rolling off her. “Bloody starvin’ here. The poofter never remembers t’ eat properly! It’s nothing but sex, sex, sex with you two!”

Buffy laughed and sat up, brushing the sand off her skin with little real success. It hadn’t been that bad until Spike had rolled her completely off the blanket just then, but now the whole back of her body was covered with it. “Well, I, for one, need a shower first. I can’t save the world with sand in the crack of my ass.”

Spike stood up, smirking, and extended a hand to her to help her to her feet. “Think that’s bad, my balls feel like they’ve been polished with bloody sandpaper.”

Buffy grimaced, but couldn’t help the small laugh that burbled up, too. “That sounds painful. Are you sure you’re gonna be able to fight evil with sore balls?”

“May need ya to kiss ‘em and make them better, luv,” he suggested as he gathered up the blanket, towels, their bathing suits, and all the other miscellany from the sand. 

Buffy laughed then, taking some of the stuff from his hands as they started back toward the house. “Well, that could probably be arranged,” she assured him, bumping his shoulder playfully with hers.

“How long ‘fore someone comes lookin’ for us, ya reckon?” he wondered as they started up the stairs at the back of the house that led to the deck.

Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “Not long enough,” she admitted.

“Well, best save time and have a shower together, then,” he suggested, opening the back door of the house and letting her precede him inside.

“I’m not super-sure that will save time,” Buffy pointed out, her brows furrowed as she considered it.

“I go along with all yer plans, luv. Think it’s time ya gave mine a shot,” Spike challenged, dropping all the stuff in his arms onto the leather sofa, spreading a thin layer of grit all over the pristine floor and furnishings.

Buffy shrugged and nodded. “Fair point. But if we’re late for the apocalypse, I’m totally blaming you.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“How lovely you could join us,” Giles drawled sarcastically when Buffy and Spike entered the War Room, each carrying one of the scythes. The magical trinket that Angel had brought was in Spike’s duster pocket, within easy reach.

“It’s Spike’s fault,” Buffy replied immediately. The DEFCON level on the door had been changed to ‘0’ – today there would be war. Buffy was pretty sure they wouldn’t start without them, though.  Breakfast, however, was a different story, apparently. The sideboard where Andrew always served the food for meetings was bare; like, not even a crumb from a donut hole left or a single drop of coffee.  Buffy scowled at it. How was she supposed to fight evil without any damn coffee?

“Should’ve known Captain Peroxide would be the one dragging his feet. What’s the matter, Spike, afraid mommy can’t protect you this time?” Riley sneered from the other end of the room where he stood in front of an enlarged blueprint of Sunnydale High that was pinned to the wall with thumbtacks.

Spike growled, low and dangerous, his grip on the scythe tightening as he judged just how hard he’d need to throw it to chop the soldier’s head clean off.

Buffy laid a hand on Spike’s arm. “Didn’t bring you in for color commentary, Finn. Just blow shit up and keep your mouth shut,” she advised sternly, her cold glare making the tall man look away.

Finn cleared his throat and turned back to the schematic behind him, pointing to various spots on it as he spoke. “As I was saying, we’ve got eight key, load-bearing points to take out. There’s enough C-4 to take down a skyscraper; don’t be stingy with it. This place needs to fall into hell, literally. There are four demolition teams in the basement, each accompanied by a team of Slayers to watch our backs while we’re setting it.

“We also have three sewer access points that will be blown before we go into the Hellmouth. If any of these vampires get past us, they won’t have anywhere to go that doesn’t involve a dusty walk in the sun. The portal in and out of the school will be the only weak spot. There will be Slayers guarding both ends of it.”

As Riley spoke to the standing-room-only group in the War Room, now filled beyond capacity with Slayers and Black Ops soldiers, Dawn slipped in and handed Spike a thermos and Buffy a plate piled up with Belgian waffles drowning in maple syrup and a large mug of coffee. Spike prodded two soldiers who were sitting at the table with the stake end of the scythe and they vacated their chairs grumpily but quickly, so that the two blondes could sit down.

While Buffy enjoyed a long, slow sip of the heavenly coffee, Spike opened the thermos and lifted it to his lips, forgoing the extra step of pouring it into the plastic cup/lid combo. As soon as the first drop of it hit his tongue his eyes went wide, and he pulled the container back, quickly licking every drop of Summers’ blood from his lips as he looked over at Buffy.

His wife gave him a smile and touched the magical ametrine amulet that hung from her neck, silently telling him, _“It was actually Dawn’s idea. Like giving you her communication amulet.”_

He looked back over his shoulder at the girl, who stood with her back against the closed door. She was beaming at him, pleased with herself for surprising him with the Summers’ proprietary blend of super-powered Slayer and magical Key blood. 

The girl took a step forward and leaned down against his ear before whispering, “To help you keep your promise.”

Spike turned his gaze on Buffy, who was eagerly devouring her waffles and listening to Riley’s last-minute instructions to his people, then back to Dawn, and nodded. “Appreciate it, pet. I’ll make sure – she’ll come back to ya,” he replied in a low voice, reaching a hand up to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly.

Dawn nodded, giving him a confident smile, and backed up again, pressing her back against the door.

“The charges in the basement will be detonated ten minutes after we breach the Hellmouth. Two teams with MPADS…” Riley was saying when Buffy interrupted, “What are MPADS?”

Riley sighed, turning his impatient gaze on her. “Man-Portable Air Defense Systems,” he clarified.

Buffy frowned. “I don’t think The First has any flying dragons,” she pointed out. “Plus, _Man_ -portable? Sexist much?”

Sam stood up from where she sat at the front near her husband and stepped in front of Riley, who was about to say something really stupid, she could tell. “They’re shoulder-launched portable missiles. We’re going to use them to blow away the cavern floor beneath the school. You said you wanted a big, sunny hole in the ground, so, short of calling in an airstrike, this seemed like the best option.”

“We could’ve called in an airstrike?” Buffy asked Sam, looking hopeful.

“Well, not without a year’s worth of red tape and more press coverage than you’d probably care to have. We could … _commandeer_ MPADS a lot more easily – keep it under the radar,” Sam admitted.

“Oh, gotcha,” Buffy replied, waving a hand for Riley to continue, understanding the implication – they’d stolen the missiles … or perhaps ‘appropriated them without permission,’ cutting out all the red tape. 

“As I was saying,” Riley picked back up. “We’ll have five minutes to weaken that floor, and then five more minutes to get out before the charges in the basement are triggered. Once that roof starts to fall, anyone left in there will be buried – we will not be able to save your ass. When you hear the airhorn go off, that means you have five minutes before the C-4 charges will blow – stop fighting and go. There will be no stopping it. You have five minutes to get the fuck out of the school and back through the portal after that warning. Is that clear?”

Everyone in the room nodded their understanding.

“It will be up to the Slayers to keep the Turok-Han off us while we’re taking out the cavern ceiling, we can’t fight vampires and strategically fire missiles at the same time,” Riley finished, looking at Buffy.

“No problem. We commandeered some weapons, too,” she assured him. “Giles? How did the training go?”

“Brilliantly,” he assured her. “Although I believe we may owe D’Hoffryn some compensation for the buildings that were destroyed in that particular dimension.” 

“Tell him to send us a bill and wait in line like everyone else,” Buffy quipped, turning back to look at Riley. “We’ve got you covered.

“Is this gonna work?” she asked the soldier.

Riley shrugged slightly. “In theory, the Hellmouth should have a stylish sunroof when we’re done,” he hedged.

Buffy nodded and shrugged also. “Theories are all we’ve got.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“This just doesn’t feel right, Buff,” Xander lamented as they stood near the portal that would take the Slayer Army, plus Spike and the Black Ops soldiers, to the school. The room was crowded with everyone making last minute preparations and saying their goodbyes to the ones who were not coming on the mission.  “I should be with you. I always thought I’d be with you at the end.”

“Not the end, ya berk!” Spike shot back from beside his wife, reaching a hand out to shove Xander sharply on the shoulder.

“You don’t know that!” Xander argued, scowling at the vampire and rubbing his shoulder.

“Xander,” Buffy interrupted gently, getting him to look back at her. “I need you to do this for me. I need you guys to make sure Dawn is okay ... and the other girls, too.”

“It feels like I’m abandoning you. Like I’m running away like a little, chicken-livered coward,” Xander admitted.

Spike snorted and rolled his eyes. “That’s just too bloody easy,” he muttered, making Buffy give him a sharp, warning look before turning back to her friend.

“Xan, I trust you. Knowing that you guys are all safe, that Dawn’s with you … it will take a huge weight off me … off both of us,” Buffy added, looking at her husband. “Won’t it, Spike?” she asked pointedly.

Spike sighed, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling.

“Spike?” Buffy said again more insistently.

“Yes. I would be eternally grateful to you for running away like a chicken-livered coward and taking the nibblet with you,” he replied perfunctorily, his tone flat and clearly coached. “It would lift a great burden from my mind knowin’ she’s with a useless git like you.”

“Not exactly the speech I gave you. Ad lib much?” Buffy muttered dourly before turning back to Xander.  

“I need you to go with the others, Xan. If anything happens – _which it won’t_ – but just in case, Dawn will need you guys,” Buffy implored him.

Xander sighed and nodded. “Just make sure nothing happens. If there’s any doubt, you can use Bleach Boy’s cranium as a shield – it’s hard enough to withstand a nuclear blast.”

Xander pulled her into a tight hug and whispered, “I love you, Buff,” against her ear.

“I love you too, Xander,” she replied in a voice thick with emotion. “It’ll be alright. We’ll be there soon.”

Xander nodded against her and released the hug, stepping back. He looked at Spike and commanded, “Keep her safe, dumbass!”

Spike tilted his head slightly in agreement. “That’s the plan, fuckwad.”

Dawn stepped up from next to Xander and hugged her sister tightly. “You better not die,” she threatened, blinking back tears, before releasing her abruptly and flinging herself against Spike. “You either!”

Spike wrapped his free arm around her and gave her a reassuring hug in return. “No worries, Nibblet. Not gonna let anything happen to yer sis this time.”

Dawn pulled back, blinking madly to try and stop the tears that threatened. “Make sure you both come back, okay? I’ll be really pissed if you don’t. And you _do not_ want me pissed.”

Spike nodded and tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it was a bit more melancholy than he’d intended. He reached out and touched her cheek gently. “Love you, Dawn. Like a little sis to me, you are,” he whispered, tears stinging his own eyes.

“I love you too, Spike,” she replied as a tear escaped, trailing slowly down her cheek.

Spike nodded and turned away abruptly before his own tears fell, determinedly swallowing back his emotions. This was more painful than getting chewed up by the Suvolte, more painful than anything Lloyd, the soul-restoring demon, had put him through, more painful than the burning soul that he’d fought so hard for. He felt like his heart was being wrenched from his chest inch by agonizing inch. There were a thousand things he wanted to say to Dawn, advice on life and love and the world, but there wasn’t time. There would never be enough time.

All he could do now was to make sure Buffy made it back from this so the girl wouldn’t be alone – no matter what that meant for him. He would not fail to protect her this time.

“You guys need to go now,” Buffy insisted, guiding Xander and Dawn over to a portal near the stairs. “We’ll see you soon, okay?”

Xander nodded forlornly, taking hold of Dawn’s elbow to go through with her. The others had already gone: Willow and Tara, Anya, Giles, Robin, Andrew, Talina, and all the Slayers and remaining Potentials who were not to be involved in the battle.

“I love you, Buffy,” Dawn called back as Xander guided her toward the shimmering light that would lead them to safety, far away from Sunnydale.

“I love you too, Dawnie,” Buffy replied before her sister disappeared from view. Buffy closed her eyes and took a deep breath, partly relief and partly apprehension.

It was time.

She turned around to find Spike standing just behind her, his eyes full of concern. “You okay, luv?”

Buffy nodded determinedly. “Yup, ready to kick some ugly vampire ass. How about you?”

Spike smirked. “You know me. Always ready for a bit of the rough and tumble, luv.”

“You know, I used to think that meant you were ready for a good fight, but now I’m not so sure,” Buffy teased, giving him a smile.

“Glad I can still keep ya guessin’, Slayer. Wouldn’t want ya to get bored,” he replied, turning to head for the other portal that would take them to the high school.

“I would pay real money to be bored for a while,” Buffy retorted. “I’d settle for no one trying to take over or end the world for a few days so I can go shopping.”

“Is it shopping first, or kidnappin’ the Swedish Chef?”

“Oh, right, I forgot about that. Maybe kidnap first so I can eat all the delicious food when I get home from a long, arduous day of power shopping,” Buffy strategized as they stopped in front of the other portal that led to the high school.

“Ready?” she asked him as she gripped her scythe tightly, feeling the power of it pulsing through her whole body.

“Got my bling on, reckon I’m ready,” Spike acknowledged, pulling the large, gaudy amulet out from under his shirt with one hand, gripping one of Xander’s Dustinators® with the other. He’d given his shiny scythe to one of the newest Slayers, Kennedy, earlier. To him, it was just a shiny axe, in the hands of a Slayer it could be used to its full potential as an ancient, mystical weapon of destruction.

Buffy turned and addressed Riley, Sam, Faith, and Amanda, who were all standing by with their respective teams. “Let’s do this!”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy and Spike stepped through the swirling light of the portal and into the deserted hallways of Sunnydale High. The place had been trashed before all the students and faculty had left, and papers, chairs, desks, and other miscellany were strewn across the once-pristine floors. The walls were spray-painted with graffiti, splattered with something Buffy hoped was ketchup and not blood, and long trails of toilet-paper hung limply from the tops of the lockers.

“Well, isn’t this cute? The dirty, little whore and her dead lover out for a stroll,” First-Caleb taunted walking slowly up the debris-strewn hallway toward them. “I must give you credit, little lady. I thought you had skedaddled. Would have been the sensible thing for you to do.”

Buffy shrugged, gripping the scythe, wishing it had some power over annoying, incorporeal jerks. “I’ve never really been very sensible. You might say I’m anti-sensible – firmly against sense as a concept, just kinda ornery that way, I guess.”

“It does make one wonder, though, just what do you believe you can accomplish here? The last Slayer and a limp-dicked vampire? Seems I have an unfair advantage with all my boys just itching to slice into you.”

First-Caleb smiled arrogantly, ignoring Spike’s warning growl, coming to a stop just in front of the two blondes, his hands clasped behind his back casually. “Of course, I will enjoy watching that. Might need t’ get some popcorn and Twizzlers.”

“Ya know, I don’t think you’re gonna enjoy it as much as you think. There’s a plot twist here at the end – patent pending,” Buffy informed him as she stepped forward, walking down the hall, passing right through the apparition, Spike following half a step behind her and to her left, guarding her weaker side with his strong side.

As soon as they moved from in front of the portal, Faith emerged, then Amanda, followed by Kennedy and then the rest of the newly formed, all-volunteer army of Slayers – or, at least the ones who had been cleared for this mission. Behind them came Riley and Sam and the Black-Ops teams, all armed to the teeth, loaded down with explosives, and ready to blow some shit up.

“Okay, everyone knows their assignments, fall in and prepare to move out!” Riley ordered when the last of the soldiers cleared the portal. The soldiers, all dressed in the same stylish black on black combat gear that Riley and Sam wore, divided up into four smaller groups, each guarded by a group of Slayers.

Buffy and her contingent of newly-minted Slayers positioned themselves around Riley’s group, while Faith and her Slayers took Sam. Amanda and Kennedy were each in charge of a contingent of Slayers, and they went with the other two groups of soldiers, headed by soldiers that Buffy recognized from the old Initiative: Graham Miller and Theo Stavros. She’d been glad to see Riley had brought experienced demon fighters with him to the shindig when she’d seen her last secret weapon arrive the previous day. The last thing she needed were panicked, green soldiers being protected by panicked, green Slayers. That was just a recipe for way too much overgrown greenery and unbridled panic.

“Where the fuck does he think he’s going?” Riley demanded of Buffy as he watched Spike separate from her and head over to Sam’s group, which Faith’s contingent of Slayers had joined.

Buffy followed the soldier’s gaze and shrugged. “To help protect your wife? You know, like he did before? I don’t think you ever did thank him properly for that, did you?”

Riley scowled down at her coldly. “Get him away from her,” he ordered through gritted teeth.

“Ummm … well, technically, he’s not under my command. He’s an independent contractor, not a Slayer, so …” Buffy shrugged helplessly.

“He’s your pet vampire, get him away from my wife or I will,” Finn demanded, reaching for his gun.

“Pull that gun out and I will cut your fucking arm off,” Buffy threatened, raising the scythe menacingly. “We’ve got more to worry about than your wife talking to my husband about C-4 in a crowd of Slayers and soldiers, now let’s go! Mission, remember?”

Riley’s hand stopped in midair, just inches from his gun, as he glared down at her icily. “You …” he began, but stopped, shaking his head derisively. He shot one more dirty look at Spike, which was completely wasted because Spike was facing away from him, then gave the order for all teams to move out.

Sam led her group of soldiers and Slayers down the hallway toward the basement access door. Spike walked next to Sam at the front, with Faith bringing up the rear of their group, guarding their backs. The sound of boots on linoleum behind her indicated that all the other groups of Slayers and soldiers were following just as smartly. At the bottom of the stairs down in the basement, each group turned and headed a different direction, going to their assigned coordinates to plant the explosives.

“You look a lot better than the last time I saw you,” Sam commented to Spike as she looked down at one of her gadgets, which was directing her to the underground vent her team would seal to keep any Turok-Han from escaping into the sewers.

Spike snorted. “Was completely off my bird last you saw me.”

Sam nodded and shrugged. “Back on your … bird now, then? What does that even mean?”

Spike shook his head. “No bloody idea, but, yeah … marbles back in their proper slots.

“Thanks for all ya did for me. For calling Buffy and keeping Captain Cardboard from stakin’ me.”

Sam nodded, turning another corner. “Of course. What are friends for if not to keep each other from doing really stupid shit and averting imminent death?”

Spike smiled and nodded. “Reckon I owe you one now,” he offered.

Sam shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll probably have plenty of chances to even it out again before this day is over.

“So, I hear Buffy made an honest man out of you,” she ventured, looking at him askance.

Spike smirked, lifting his left hand up to show her the skull ring. “Like it? She went t’ Zales.”

Sam looked over at it and then up to focus on Spike, his pleased expression showing clearly in the light from the green glowstick clipped to her shoulder.

“Unusual choice for a wedding band, but it suits you,” she replied, giving him an approving smile. “She caught you, didn’t let you crash on the rocks,” the soldier observed, looking up to meet his eyes.

Spike nodded. “Yeah, you were right, luv,” he agreed solemnly. “Don’t think I ever told ya how much I appreciated you saying that.”

Sam looked back at her gadget a moment, then out in front of them. “You deserved to know. I’m not sure Buffy was quite ready to tell you,” she replied, turning to meet his eyes briefly and give him another pensive smile before looking away again.

“I hear congratulations are in order. You’re expecting?” Sam offered, her tone light and teasing.

“ _Pffft_ ,” Spike scoffed. “Rumors and innuendoes spread by a homely, disappointed lass when she found out this hot, tight little body was off the market.”

“Hey! I heard that,” Faith called from behind the group. “B’s the one that told me, and we all know she _never_ lies! Also, who the fuck you calling ‘homely’, bitch?”

Spike smirked, turning back enough for Faith to see it, then said to Sam confidentially, “She’s not properly medicated. Bloody tragic, it is.”

Sam laughed and rolled her eyes, turning down another passageway as indicated by the little gadget in her hand.

“And how’re things with the big lummox? Ever find any medication for his condition?” Spike wondered.

Sam smiled genuinely, appreciating Spike’s humor, and shook her head before replying, “Everything’s fine.”

The soldier stopped then as they came to a large air vent that had been identified as a possible below-ground escape route for the Turok-Han if any got out of the Hellmouth. “Bailey, blow this, seal it off,” she ordered one of the men under her command before stepping back to let him set the charges.

“Fine, is it?” Spike questioned, arching a brow at her as the group backed up and formed a perimeter around the soldier who was setting the charges, guarding against attack. “Ya know, experience has shown that whenever Buffy says, ‘it’s fine’, that means it bloody well isn’t ‘fine’ and I better figure out what the hell I did that made everything so ‘ _fine’_ and fix it.

“If I’m honest, I don’t think she understands the meaning of the word,” Spike admitted. “Do you?”

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” Bailey announced suddenly, and everyone moved further away from the vent, covering their ears and ducking. The blast wasn’t that loud, but the wall around the vent crumbled and fell in on itself, sending a plume of dust into the air and closing off the opening completely.

“Okay, now we need to set charges to take out these supports,” Sam ordered, as she began moving through the space, tapping a hand on various walls and columns, calling out the name of one of her squad each time.  The whole squad was in motion then, each concentrating on setting the explosives to demolish their assigned support structure as the Slayers and Spike fanned out, forming a protective perimeter around them.

“You know,” Faith said to Spike as they waited and watched. “You will pay for that bullshit remark.”

“Will I, then?” Spike asked, smirking. “And just what’s the price o’ insulting a homely Slayer?”

“Gonna tell everyone that Riley’s the father of your baby. Buffy just married you out of pity after he dumped you,” Faith retorted, grinning evilly. “What’s the matter, Spike? He was poking for fun and you took him seriously?”

Spike’s stomach turned over in revulsion as he gave her a menacing look. “If yer trying to make me sick, you’re doing a bloody good job of it. Killed ya once, don’t think I won’t do it again.”

“You could _try_ , big guy,” Faith taunted, twirling the scythe effortlessly, as if she’d been born with it in her hand. “I really can’t wait to see what that baby looks like … you or Finn,” she continued. “Will it come out in a little soldier’s outfit or a leather duster?” she taunted.

“Buffy was right, you are completely off your trolley. Bloody twisted, and not in the good way,” Spike asserted. “Oh, thank God – some sanity,” he announced suddenly, looking past her.

“What?” she asked, following his gaze.

“Bringers!” he shouted loud enough that all the Slayers nearby could hear him, lifting up the Dustinator® and moving out to intercept a pack of ten or twelve of the First’s minions who were closing on them quickly.

Spike swung the razor-sharp axe at the first Bringer he came to with such force that he nearly decapitated it. Warm, rich blood sprayed over him and everything within four feet of the attacker as the demon collapsed into a twitching heap of flesh on the basement floor. The Slayers on either side of Spike, who had come up as soon as he announced the Bringers’ arrival, groaned and cursed in protest of the scarlet deluge, but kept their composure as they took on more of The First’s henchmen.

Within moments the skirmish was over. A dozen Bringers being no match for five Slayers and an annoyed vampire. Spike could hear similar battles going on in other parts of the basement, but they, too, ended quickly.

 _“You okay, luv?”_ Spike sent to Buffy, squeezing the shiny communication amulet between his fingers.

 _“Fine,”_ she replied, making Spike’s brows draw together in consternation.

 _“Fine as in ‘fine’, or fine as in ‘not fine’?”_ he wondered.

_“Fine as in Riley Finn is driving me crazy and I really dislike not punching him in the throat.”_

_“I don’t like to say, ‘I told ya so’, but …”_ Spike retorted, smirking.

 _“Oh, please! You love nothing more than saying that!”_ Buffy fired back.

 _“Not true, luv. I love fried dough sprinkled with sugar more,”_ he countered as he wiped the blood off his weapon using the cloak of the nearest downed Bringer.

 _“And I’m sure fried dough loves you too, baby,”_ Buffy quipped. _“Oh, I think they’re done. See you at the seal in a few – assuming I don’t have to kill Finn and hide the body before we get there.”_

Spike looked around to see how Sam’s team was doing, and they, too, seemed to be nearly finished setting their charges.  He walked back over near the soldiers to wait, still keeping an eye out for more Bringers, but none came. Clearly, The First hadn’t had enough Bringers in place to face this many Slayers. Score one for the good guys.

“Never answered my question, luv,” Spike reminded Sam when she finally stood up after having set her charges along a thick, block, supporting wall and wired in the remote-controlled timer and detonation device.

“What question was that?” she asked offhandedly, looking around to check on the progress of her squad.

“Do ya know what ‘fine’ means?”

Seeing that everyone was just about done, she turned and looked back at the blond vampire, pursing her lips contemplatively but not meeting his eyes. “Yes, of course, and everything’s fine,” she repeated unconvincingly, tucking a stray lock of brunette hair that had come free from her ponytail back behind her ear.

Spike stepped up directly in front of her, stopping her from moving. He took her left hand in his, lightly pinching the wedding band between his thumb and forefinger. His fingers felt oddly warm where they touched her skin; the band felt cold and icy in contrast – or perhaps Sam just imagined it.

“This isn’t a bloody manacle, Samantha. It comes off,” Spike said in a low voice, catching and holding her chocolate-brown eyes with his. “If he isn’t your heart’s desire, then find someone who is. You’re not in the bleedin’ jungle here, pet. You’ve got friends who care about you, who’ll stand with you. You can walk away.”

Sam blinked rapidly as moisture stung her eyes, his use of her given name not lost on her, her in-charge soldier persona crumbling slightly beneath his scrutiny. “My heart’s desire already found his one true love,” she whispered, dropping her eyes away from Spike’s uncomfortably. “And I’d never do anything to come between them. They are …” she shrugged one shoulder, looking back up at him, “… perfect together. Clearly made for each other.”

Spike pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, considering her a few moments as soldiers bustled around them, finishing their tasks.  Finally, he said, “You are a bloody amazing woman – strong, smart, passionate. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be cherished and loved. That bloody wanker has no idea what those words even mean, pet. There are good men in this world … one of them is waitin’ for you, searching for you, _perfect for you_. He’s out there, waiting to be your heart. He can’t find ya here chained to a git who doesn’t know how to love you, who doesn’t appreciate the bloody _marvel_ that you are.”

Sam closed her eyes and the tears she’d been trying to hold back slipped down her cheeks.  “It’s not that easy,” she insisted. “I’m a Black Ops solider. Just who do you think will want –”

“That’s not a bloody life sentence,” Spike interrupted her. “This…” Spike released her hand and flicked a finger against her black Kevlar vest, “… is not a manacle, either. It comes off.”

Sam opened her eyes, steeling herself, meeting his gaze with determination. “It’s who I am,” she insisted. “I love my work. I love being a soldier. I love helping people.”

“I noticed ya didn’t include your husband in that list o’ things you love,” Spike pointed out. “Your little band o’ brothers isn’t the only army in the world,” Spike continued. “Buffy’s got a bloody army now! Always lookin’ for a few good women.”

Sam snorted. “I’m too old to be a Slayer … even if I was … _qualified_.”

“Don’t know if it works that way anymore, luv,” Spike pointed out. “And, even if it did, there’s more than one way to fight the darkness, to help the hopeless, to follow a calling. Slayers need Watchers.”

Sam frowned. “But I’m a soldier, not a … spectator.”

Spike snorted. “Ask Rupert how many times he’s been knocked out and see if ya think being a Watcher is for poofters.”

Sam took a deep breath and nodded, hastily wiping the moisture from her cheeks and recomposing herself. “I’ll … think about it,” she offered. “Thanks for the advice, as usual, Dr. Phil.”

She turned away from him then, and called her squad back into ranks. Without further conversation, the group headed back through the dimly lit basement toward the seal and the battle that awaited beyond it.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

As the Slayers set to opening the seal that led into the Hellmouth by pouring pint containers of their own, previously-drawn blood onto it, Sam’s and Riley’s teams of soldiers readied their rocket launchers. The other two squads of soldiers stood guard at the entrance to the room where the seal was located, ready to defend it from Bringers, if any more appeared, and also stop any Turok-Han from escaping, if they got by the Slayers below.

The seal began to shift ominously as the blood flowed over it, filling all the cracks and crevasses with the mystical power of the Slayer blood. Metal ground against stone as the demonic manhole cover opened and a bright light shone up through the cracks, as if trying to escape from the depths of hell, temporarily blinding everyone. When the light faded, the Hellmouth stood open once again. Buffy had been down in here too many times in her life. Honestly, once was too many. If everything went right, this would also be the last time anyone would have to descend into this fissure and fight back the rising dark. She meant to close it, once and for all.

The Slayers were the first to enter, with Buffy and Spike in the lead, followed closely by Faith and Amanda, and then the newly minted, volunteer Slayers. They walked down the rough, stone steps in silence, mouths dry, hearts thudding, adrenaline surging, every nerve-ending tingling, ready to spring into action.

But nothing jumped out at them. No Turok-Han attacked. Nothing happened at all.

They came to a wide ledge at the bottom of the stairs and fanned out, still moving forward slowly and silently toward the edge. Still nothing happened. Nothing attacked.

Buffy began to doubt herself. Maybe the dream hadn’t been real. Maybe there weren’t thousands of ugly vampires down here. Maybe all this had been for nothing. Maybe The First was full of shit, like most demented evil things, and had just been blowing smoke up her ass.

Or maybe not.

Buffy bit down on a curse that threatened to break the tense silence as she reached the edge of the pit of hell and looked over. ‘Thousands’ was not nearly sufficient to describe the number of Turok-Han she saw in the massive cavern below. They swarmed over the walls below like fire ants on a kicked hill, rising up from the depths of hell, just waiting for their chance to escape into the world. And she and her little group of Slayers and a few soldiers were all that stood between The First’s army and her sister, her friends, the world.

_It is not enough._

Buffy swallowed hard and looked over at Spike. He, too, was looking down into the roiling mass of evil below them, his Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively in his throat. He must’ve felt her eyes on him, because he turned then, his jaw set in stony resolve. No matter what, he refused to fail to protect her this time. He bloody well refused. No matter what happened to him, she would get out of here. She would get back to Dawn. She would make more memories. He gripped the Dustinator® tightly in his left hand and gave her a short nod of determined reassurance.

Buffy licked her dry lips and returned the gesture, hoping she looked as sure as he did. She didn’t feel it, but knowing that he was here, fighting at her side, helped stem back the rising doubt. She broke eye contact with him and looked around for Sam and Riley and their squads of soldiers then. They were taking up positions behind the Slayers on the wide ledge, settling their rocket launchers on their shoulders.

Buffy let out a long breath and nodded sharply at Riley: Bring the fucker down.

Riley held up a hand, then dropped it sharply, like someone starting a drag race, and in the next instant all hell broke loose. Rockets sailed out over the Slayer’s heads, crashing against the cavern ceiling with deafening explosions, which rained down rocks and debris onto the Turok-Han below.

The noise froze the Turok-Han in their tracks – all gazillion of them – as they looked up at the sound.  In the next instant the prehistoric vampires surged as one, scrambling up the walls toward the ledge, toward the Slayers, the soldiers, and the open portal beyond. The Slayers were ready, though, and their commandeered flamethrowers rained gouts of fire down on the vampires, sending them tumbling back, shrieking in unholy terror, before exploding into dust. Deadly jets of fire poured out as thick and heavy as water from a burst fire hydrant over the vampires from multiple sources. It ignited any Turok-Han within thirty feet of the ledge, wholly engulfing them in the annihilating flame. The ones near the top set even more vampires alight as they fell, creating a fiery snowball effect of brilliant, red-hot light tumbling down the steep wall of the cavern.

Any vampires that somehow got past the immense bursts of deadly flame were the responsibility of the four Slayers with the scythes, who were spaced out along the ranks. It was working better than Buffy had hoped. Few Turok-Han made it through the flames, and those that did were often injured, making them easy pickings for the powerful Slayers with mystical scythes. 

As they fought, the missiles continued to sail over their heads and explode against the solid rock of the cavern’s ceiling, raining down more and more debris onto the attacking army of vampires. The soldiers were aiming far enough away from the ledge that nothing but thick, gritty dust was blown back onto the Slayers, while large rocks began falling into the depths of the cavern. Buffy could see fissures opening up in the ceiling and so could the soldiers. The next round of missiles targeted the cracks, opening them wider, sending more and more of the ceiling tumbling into the pit of hell, weakening it further.

Spike had been fighting beside Buffy at the end of the line of Slayers with the Dustinator®. While he was not as effective as the Slayers with mystical scythes, he was able to take out one or two Turok-Han who had scaled up the wall out of Buffy’s reach. If he couldn’t dust them, he managed, at least, to redirect them back into play, keeping them away from the soldiers. He felt a little bit like a paddle in a pinball machine, knocking the primeval vampires who slipped away from Buffy right back into her deadly blade.

Watching her twirl and twist as she swung the mythical weapon was like watching a ballet, a lethal ballet. She was death and destruction wrapped up in a cloak of grace and power, the scythe seeming to be an extension of her body, part of her. Watching her fight never ceased to fill him with a sense of awe and wonder, and not a small amount of desire. Even now, when he could only catch quick glimpses of her elegant, deadly style, he could feel her power wash over him, like a siren song, speaking directly to his most primal instincts.

Spike had just watched her plunge the stake into the chest of one of the deadly vampires that he’d sent sprawling toward her when the amulet that Angel had given them began to glow against his chest.  In the heat of battle, he’d nearly forgotten it was even there. In the next moment, the unexpected power of it burst white-hot against his chest, sending him stumbling backwards across the ledge, away from the Slayers. He came to a stop against the rock wall of the cavern at their backs, off to one side of the soldiers.  The Dustinator® was knocked from his hand when he hit the stone, the amulet on his chest glowing like a sun in the darkness of the cavern.

“Buffy!” Spike called, but she couldn’t hear him over the whistles and explosions of rockets and the roar of flamethrowers.

As the flamethrowers ran out of fuel, the Slayers dropped them over the edge and picked up their hand-to-hand weapons to join those with the scythes in keeping the Turok-Han away from the soldiers. There was a moment when no vampires topped the ledge, not yet aware that there were no more flames. The Slayers stood ready, waiting with axes, swords, machetes, and a few more Dustinators® that Xander had been able to cobble together for them, alongside the four scythes. Buffy looked up at the ceiling as the soldiers continued to fire rockets. The cracks were widening, it wouldn’t take much longer for it to begin to fall, especially coupled with the explosives planted above. They only had to hold the vampires off for a little while longer.  

“Buffy!” Spike tried again, but she still couldn’t hear him over the boom of the explosions and whistling of rockets. Then he remembered the communication stone around his neck. He yanked it off, breaking the leather thong and pulling it away from the glowing amulet. He held the small stone tightly in his hand as he tried again, this time using the magic, “ _Buffy_!”

She turned immediately and sharply, looking for him amid the confusion. He wasn’t where she’d expected him to be and she had to turn around further to find him against the back wall, off to the side of the soldiers. She could see the amulet around his neck glowing brightly against his chest as he stood stock-still against the wall.

“Spike!” she called back, starting for him.

Suddenly the airhorn that Riley had talked about in the meeting sounded. Five minutes. They had five minutes to get back upstairs, through the portal and clear before the detonations in the basement started going off, which would, if all went according to plan, give the Hellmouth a deadly new sunroof.

“GO! GO! GO!” Buffy yelled at the Slayers, windmilling her free arm frantically in an effort to be understood, unable to be heard by anyone further than a few feet from her.

She heard Spike scream amid the turmoil then and looked up to see a shaft of brilliant light shooting up from his chest all the way through the ceiling of the cavern into the brilliant mid-day sun outside. Buffy rushed toward him, still urging the Slayers out and up the stairs as she went.  The last of the soldiers were still firing their rockets at the fissures in the ceiling, but most of them had already turned and were hurrying up the stairs in a mass exodus.

Buffy had nearly reached Spike when an uber-vamp grabbed her arm and yanked her back, its long, sharp nails digging into her flesh excruciatingly. She shrieked in frustration and pain, and jabbed backwards with the stake end of her scythe. She missed the vamp’s heart, but plunged the stake into its abdomen, making it release her. She yanked back, pulling her weapon out of its flesh with a squelch of blood and gore. As soon as the scythe was free, she swung the axe at the uber-vamp’s neck, decapitating it with one vicious blow.

With the Slayers and soldiers retreating, more and more uber-vamps were topping the ledge and rushing toward them. Buffy watched in horror as Chloe, one of the new Slayers who Buffy knew from their time in her house, was dragged backwards by one of the Turok-Han. The girl screamed in agony and horror, as the vampire gutted her with its long, sharp claws. Blood spurted up, spraying from severed arteries in a hellish fountain of gore from her ravaged torso. The vamp roared in giddy victory and dove atop the downed girl, bathing in her blood, drinking from jetting spurts of scarlet like a child would drink from a water fountain, while Chloe screamed in terror and pain.

“NOOO!” Buffy screamed, moving back away from Spike and toward the downed girl, not realizing it was already too late.

Buffy swung madly at the ravenous vampires who had converged on the downed girl. Buffy aimed for necks, but was happy with any damage she could inflict, trying to get them off the teen.  More and more uber-vamps were topping the wall now in pursuit of the retreating humans. They joined the fray, raking at Buffy with their claws, darting in one or two at a time to try to get inside the reach of her scythe, to knock it from her hand.

Chloe’s scream died in a gurgle of death as a vamp clamped its razor-sharp teeth down on her throat and tore viciously, ripping her throat out all the way to the spine. Even as Buffy continued to fight, another swarm of the uber-vamps descended on the girl’s lifeless body, ripping and tearing at flesh in a frenzy of bloodlust.

Buffy realized she’d failed … failed the girl, failed to keep her promise to protect her. It tore at the Slayer just as surely as the claws of the Turok-Han did, but she couldn’t wallow in that now. She started moving away, moving toward Spike, toward the exit, fighting off the rising number of uber-vamps that continued to swarm up from the depths of hell as she went. Most had gone for the dead girl – the easy meal – but more and more were beginning to turn their disconcerting eyes on her.

Blood poured down Buffy’s face, neck, shoulders, and arms from cuts inflicted by their sharp claws and fangs, but she had no attention to spare for it. She had to get out of here. She had to get to Spike and get them both out of here. Everyone else had gone; the ceiling would be exploding at any moment, flooding hell with bright, golden, deadly sunlight. True, it would remove the vamps, turn them into harmless motes of dust – that had been her plan – but it would bury her and Spike under tons of rubble if they were still here when it blew.

How long had it been since the horn had sounded? She had no idea of time – it might’ve been seconds or minutes.

Suddenly and with no warning, several of the primeval vampires left the drained body of the volunteer Slayer and charged Buffy as one, taking advantage of their superior numbers. She staked one of the onrushing vampires, and tried to spin away from the rest, swinging the axe end of the scythe in a wide arc. She dusted two more as she spun, removing their heads from their necks, but one ducked under the weapon and tackled her around the legs. The Slayer went down hard on the rocky floor of the ledge, her head bouncing off the stone painfully.

Spike roared in fear, anger, and frustration as he tried in vain to move, to go to her, to help her. He felt like a bug pinned to a board by the shaft of light that shone up from his chest into the stratosphere, into the ether, perhaps all the way to heaven. He took one halting step, then another, but it was all he could do, the shaft of mystical power was too strong, imprisoning him, rendering him immobile and impotent.  

Fangs and claws tore at Buffy, but she continued to fight, trying to stab at the vamps with the scythe, but to little effect. She had no leverage, she had no room to draw back, she had no way out. She tried to scream, to call for help, but she had no air in her lungs to even do that as she felt her flesh being shredded by the crazed vampires.

Buffy closed her eyes and sent one final message to her husband using the communication amulet. “ _Spike! Get out … you have to get out! You have to live! For Dawn! Go!”_

_“No! Buffy! You’re not bloody dying! Fight! Fight, damn you!”_

_“I love you, Spike! Go!”_ she insisted. She was trying to fight, but she was growing weaker by the moment beneath the onslaught of the Turok-Han.

Spike fought with all his strength to get free of the magical bond of the amulet that kept him from her side, but he could barely move from the spot. He managed two more halting, excrutiaingly painful steps as he continued screaming at her to fight.  It wouldn’t be enough. Once again, _he_ wouldn’t be enough to save her.

He watched in horror as more Turok-Han topped the ledge and headed for Buffy. They began fighting with each other then, trying to get to the Slayer. The more that came up, it seemed the more they fought amongst themselves, taking most of their focus off Buffy for the moment.

She turned over onto her stomach and tried to drag herself away from the madding crowd of horror, but they were all around her, snarling and snapping. Each time she saw an opening between them, it closed before she could reach it. Claws continued tearing at her back, and feet smashed down on her as they fought each other for the prize – for her. Her blood. Her life.

Spike continued screaming frantically at her to fight, to live, to get up, to run – now! Do it now while they were fighting each other! Buffy _was_ trying to do that, although she could barely hear him now through the fog of pain that threatened to engulf her.

“I love you,” she muttered out loud as the scythe was knocked from her hand, her last real defense and source of strength, lost.

Time seemed to stop then. The world stopped spinning, as it always seemed to when death was at her door. Everything moved in super-slow motion as a thousand images and thoughts flashed through her mind.

This was it. This was her end. She’d be torn to shreds here in the Hellmouth by these vampires. It seemed somehow fitting. This is where she’d died the first time, this is where she’d die for the last time. She’d be buried here – it would be her final resting place. The shadow men had told her she was the last guardian of the Hellmouth. They had been right, after all. That is what she’d be. She’d be here forever, buried in the depths of hell, a ghostly guardian.

Buffy wasn’t sure if it was tears or blood running down her face as she tried to escape from the fighting, snarling vampires. She kicked and punched with all the strength she had left, but she, too seemed to be moving in slow motion, powerless and spent.  She tried to drag herself away from them while guarding her neck from their snapping fangs and raking claws, but she barely seemed able to move.

She was losing this battle. She knew it and they knew it.

There would be no more memories to be made. There would be no more laughter, no more nights under the stars. No more beaches. No more dreams.

She’d never feel Spike’s arms around her again. She’d never again hear his throaty, whispered terms of endearment against her skin in the dark. Never see Dawn graduate high school, go off to college, fall in love, get married, have kids, grow into the beautiful woman Buffy knew she would be. Buffy would never be an aunt. She’d never be a mother. She’d never be anything but what she was: A Slayer. Alone in the dark.

“It’s time, Buffy. You’ve done enough, dear,” her mother’s voice resounded in her mind, drowning out everything else. Buffy blinked, looking up to see her mother hovering in front of her just outside the ring of fighting vampires, dressed in a flowing white gown, glowing like an angel.

“Mom?” she whispered, trying to reach a hand out to her through the throng of uber-vamps.

“You’ve done enough, honey. Just let go now,” Joyce urged her gently, smiling down on her as the vampires ripped at her flesh mercilessly.

All that her life could’ve been, all that had been lost, flashed through Buffy’s mind like a bad movie with a heartbreaking ending, flooding her with a bone-deep weariness and soul-crushing sorrow. It was over. Why had she fought so long? Why was she still fighting?

She nodded and let her eyes fall closed. “I’m coming, Mom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GAH!! Will either of them get out of this??? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! 
> 
> Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!


	84. What Doesn't Kill You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle in the Hellmouth is decided. Buckle up! The bottom just might fall out from under your feet. Literally.

****  


* * *

 

Just as Buffy had given up on getting out of here, had resigned herself to being buried in the depths of hell for all eternity, dust rained down on her, covering her, choking her. Her first thought was that the cavern was collapsing, but when strong hands lifted her roughly up off the floor, she realized that wasn’t it at all.

“Did you really think we’d actually follow orders, B?” Faith asked sarcastically, draping one of Buffy’s arms over her shoulder as she lifted the beaten, bruised and bloody Slayer back to her feet.

Buffy blinked the dust, blood, and tears from her eyes and saw Amanda and Kennedy fighting off the advancing vampires. Faith handed Buffy her scythe back, and Buffy grasped it tightly in both hands, feeling the power of it surge through her again, dull the ache, lift the shroud of defeat off her soul.

“Can you walk?” Faith asked, still supporting the weakened, bleeding blonde.

“I … think … yeah …” Buffy stammered, pulling her arm off Faith’s shoulder and putting her full weight on her ravaged legs. She gasped in agony, her knees nearly buckling, her muscles quivering with her weight, but she didn’t collapse. She put the ax end of the scythe down and used it as a cane to help support her weight, leaning on it heavily. Her head spun from loss of blood and pain, so she took a couple of deep breaths to help push it all back. She had no time for any of that right now. She could collapse later, maybe even die – but not now. Death would have to wait a bit longer.

“Go. Help them … I’m okay,” she assured Faith in a throaty rasp as she once again started for Spike. She limped painfully across the floor, leaning on the scythe, dragging one foot, half bent over holding her stomach, and leaving a thick trail of blood on the hard, stone floor.

Spike sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to every saint, sinner, ghost, goddess, and fairy godmother in the universe when he saw Buffy on her feet again. Injured, bleeding, bruised, bitten, and beaten, but walking and talking – _alive_. She would make it out of here. His promise to Dawn would not be broken. 

As she neared him, multiple shafts of brilliant, white light began bursting out of the amulet around Spike’s neck like brilliant lightning bolts. Buffy watched in wonder as the bolts of power blasted into the Turok-Han as if drawn to them by magic, and simply vaporized them in their tracks.

The three Slayers who had been fighting turned back to look also, as all the vamps around them were incinerated in an instant.

“GO! GET OUT!” Buffy screamed at them as the ground beneath their feet began to shudder and quake, and the fissures that had been opened in the ceiling began to widen dangerously.

As the three Slayers headed for the stairs, she looked back at her husband. His face was alight in more ways than one. His blue eyes fairly glowed, looking awestruck and amazed. It was a look Buffy knew well, he had looked at her just this way many times. But this was different. He wasn’t looking at her, it was something coming from within him. From his soul.

“Spike! We have to go! It’s gonna blow!” Buffy yelled at him over the sound of falling rocks and incinerating vampires. She hobbled up right next to him as the brilliant shafts of light continued to blast past her, zipping out wildly on the way into the cavern to find their targets.

“Can’t, pet,” he replied calmly, looking at her in wonder. “Can’t seem t’ move.”

“Take the fucking thing off! You’ve done enough!”

Spike shook his head slowly, almost trance-like. “Go, Buffy. This is for me to finish. I promised Dawn you’d make it – and you have, but ya gotta go now.”

“What?! NO! What about your promise to _me_?!? Take it off!” Buffy insisted, reaching for the amulet. She screamed and pulled her hand back as a shaft of the light burned her palm, searing a quarter-sized hole in her flesh, all the way to the bone.

“I’m sorry, pet,” Spike apologized, his voice thick with emotion, tears welling in his eyes. “I love you with my whole being, always, forever. But I can’t stay.”

“No! You promised me! Spike! Take it off!” she argued frantically, trying to figure out how to get the amulet off him without getting incinerated herself with its laser beams.

“BUFFY! SPIKE! WE HAVE TO GO! IT’S GONNA BLOW!” Sam screamed from halfway up the stairs as she came back down to find them, Riley right behind her.

“Goddamn it, you stubborn vampire!” Buffy shrieked as she lifted the blade of her scythe up, sliding the flat side of it against his chest and beneath the chain that held the amulet. Her blood-soaked, bruised, burned, and battered hands slipped on the handle and she sliced a long, deep gash through his t-shirt and into Spike’s chest before she could get the bottom edge of the axe hooked over the chain.

Spike gasped in pain when she cut him and reached for the scythe, yelling back at her to, “Get the fuck outta here!”

His blood flowed out and ran down the gleaming blade, coating it with the life that ran through him: Summers blood, freely given blood, Slayer and magical Key. Blood of the two people that he loved most in the world; blood of the two people who loved him unconditionally. It slid down the blade slowly, a thick layer of scarlet spreading out to cover the shining metal.  

Just as his hand closed over the handle of the weapon, Buffy jerked down hard, breaking the chain that held the powerful, cleansing crystal. The amulet swung down toward the blade of the scythe, bolts of power still beaming down from the heavens, flowing through Spike, and shooting off the crystal in all directions.

The amulet was also coated in the blood that filled Spike’s veins and, as it swung down toward the scythe, the beams of light coming from it suddenly shifted. The brilliant white light turned red as it shown through the coating of blood and began curling and writhing around the pair like a boa constrictor winding around its prey. It engulfed them with its swirling power, holding them both frozen in time and space. Their eyes met and held, blue on green, as the magic churned around them, between them, prickling their skin with dangerous, mystical energy. Everything else stopped in that moment. Time and space were inconsequential trivialities as they fell into each other’s eyes, drowning in the heavenly depths of love and devotion, utterly lost in each other.

They both gasped as their souls touched in the glow of other-worldly magic, fitting perfectly, filling in the gaps, cracks, and missing pieces of the other with bright, glowing warmth.

Whole. One. Complete. Content. Loved.

Buffy found herself flying over the boneyard wasteland of Spike’s soul, only the landscape had changed. There was snow on the ground now, it blanketed and softened the sins of the demon, but she could see that it was beginning to melt. She also saw that there were some new craters in the ground, deep, painful-looking gouges that hadn’t been there before. Everything around them had been blackened and burned, as if from detonations of powerful bombs, a sharp contrast to the pristine, white snow. New sins. New deaths. Things he’d done while under control of The First. He hadn’t escaped unscathed from that, even with her assurances and forgiveness. He’d given pieces of his soul for the mission, for her.

The light in the sky was not a moon as Willow had described it, but also not the blinding, painful force that Buffy had first experienced. It was now a gentle, warming orb that reminded her of the soft, mellow light of a summer sunset. The deep furrows of dark, frozen lava were gently flowing streams of clear, sparkling water now.  Despite the pain of the new sins, there were flowers and tufts of grass sprouting up here and there through the melting snow, like daffodils and crocuses, alongside the streams. She hoped that some of those were her doing, that she had some part in bringing color and beauty to the barrenness that had been here. The mountains of bones were still snow-capped, being slowly revealed, bit by bit, as the snow melted beneath the gentle sun of his soul.

It still hurt him, she knew, how could it not? But it was something William could handle, dealing with the demon’s sins in slow measures rather than in one overwhelming deluge of pain. The lowland that was the blood and gore swamp was still covered in ice and snow, hidden from the human soul. But, when it was time, she knew that too would be revealed, and William would be able to handle it, as well.

Buffy’s gossamer angel’s wings glinted in the diffused light as they carried her toward the hollowed-out mountain in the center of it all, to where she knew the human and the demon spirits, William and Spike, would be.

Buffy tucked her wings back to enter the top of the blown-out mountain, then glided around in a gentle circle to come in for a landing. As she did, she could see the floor below. It was no longer nothing but dry, parched sand. Large patches of green grass covered most of the area with paths between them of the once ubiquitous sand. There were a few patches of sand still scattered around, like sand traps on a golf course, but nothing like it had been. There were clusters of flowers here and there, mostly they looked like wildflowers, but one area seemed to be … hydrangeas? Like William’s mother had grown in her garden?  

Along one curving wall of the cavernous space there were clusters of furniture, set up as if they were in rooms, but without any actual walls between them or roofs over them. Buffy recognized them all. The first was a replica of the bedroom below Spike’s crypt, complete with the bed and dresser/bar combination and the small, chipped Formica table where she’d dined with him more than once. The next room was the living room from Buffy’s house, including the comfortable couch and easy chairs, coffee table, and television. She wondered if Spike and William had cable in here now and if they bickered over what shows to watch and who had control of the remote. The third was Buffy’s bedroom from her now-destroyed house on Revello Drive, including the heavy, Slayer-proof bed that Xander had built them, but her dresser had been replaced with bookshelves, filled to overflowing with books of every description.

A small smile curved her lips. The two halves of the man she loved had found some measure of peace, found a way to live with, perhaps even forgive, the sins of the past – both the demon’s and the man’s. There was a feeling of contentment and hope here now instead of anguish and desolation.

As Buffy came in for a landing, she actually managed to stay on her feet this time instead of tumbling to a painful halt against the stone wall, though she had to run several paces before coming to a stop.

Buffy looked around and found the human and demon coming out of the replica of her living room, moving toward her, walking briskly, side by side.

Buffy rushed across the open ground toward the two halves of her true love.  She flung herself into their arms, wrapping an arm around each of their necks and pulling them to her. Her glimmering wings closed around the two men, holding them all within her loving, protective embrace.

The two halves of her love buried their faces against her shoulders, their arms slipping around her, beneath her wings, around her slim waist, to hold her just as tightly, just as fervently. There were tears. There was laughter. There was a connection between the three that was deeper than the blood swamp and higher than the bone mountains.

“Oh, God, I thought I’d lost you,” she cried, turning to touch a soft kiss first to William’s cheek and then Spike’s.

“You must know that our love is yours for all eternity, Buffy,” William assured her, pulling back slightly to look into her eyes.

“But you gotta go, pet,” Spike continued. “Not safe here … something’s comin’. Can’t ya feel it?”

Buffy pulled back, retracting her wings, and swiping her tears from her eyes and cheeks, as she shook her head. “No … I mean … yes, but … no! I won’t leave you! Whatever it is, we can stop it!”

William and Spike both shook their heads morosely, their eyes locked onto hers, William’s blue and Spike’s yellow, as she looked back and forth between them.

“Don’t reckon it can be stopped, luv. It’s too big, too strong,” Spike said, giving her a sad, remorseful smile.

“NO! You promised me! You promised forever!” Buffy argued, tears welling in her eyes again. “We have to fight!”

“Yes,” William agreed. “ _We_ must do this – Spike and I. Whatever is coming, we, alone, must face it. You must go. Dawn needs you,” William urged her, reluctantly pulling his hand free of her grip.

“But I need _you_!” Buffy insisted, reaching out to recapture his hand.

“No, luv, you don’t,” Spike told her, stepping up between her and William.

“Don’t tell me what I need!” Buffy fumed at him, trying to look past the demon to the human, trying to get William’s support against the vampire. “I love you. I need you in my life … I _want_ you in my life!”

“Buffy …” William began sympathetically, his voice cracking with emotion, but Spike moved slightly, blocking her view of the human.

“This is for us to do, Buffy,” Spike interrupted his counterpart. “We have to face it … just us. Not you. You have to go. One of us has to live. That one is you,” the demon insisted.

“Noooo!” Buffy begged as the light shining down from above suddenly darkened, like when a rain cloud moves across the sun. But she knew there were no clouds here.

They all looked up to see a large, swirling, inky-black mist high above the opening to the mountain. Lightning flashed through it, blindingly bright, and thunder shook the air in an ear-shattering booming rumble. As it moved and writhed in the air, pulsing, glittering masses of opalescent color were revealed in its depths – blues and greens, reds and pinks, purples and mauves – all mingling and parting, running like watercolors in the rain before being swallowed by the darkness again.

“What is it?” Buffy asked as they all watched it begin to descend, snaking around the opening of the mountain then slowly slithering its way inside. It curled around the perimeter, hugging the stone walls, sinking lower and lower in a slow spiral.

“Dunno, but it’s for us to face, luv. Please … you’ve got to go, pet,” Spike urged her.

Buffy looked away from the oncoming cloud, back down to meet his eyes. The demon was pleading with her, his yellow eyes imploring, begging her to go. She’d rarely seen that from him before and it tore at her heart just as surely as the claws of the Turok-Han had torn at her flesh.

“But I can help,” she insisted, looking back up quickly at the oncoming threat, then back to meet his eyes.

“No, not in this. Spike is correct,” William said, stepping up next to Spike. “You are always with us, Buffy. You are everything to us, but you cannot stay. This is not your fight. Please, my wife, my love, my heart. Please go now. I beg of you.”

“You promised me,” Buffy rasped out, her chest constricting, making it hard for her to draw breath enough to speak.

“We will fight to keep our promise, my love,” William vowed. “But you must go. We must know that you are safe above all else.”

Tears streaked Buffy’s cheeks as she shook her head, not wanting to leave them. Despite her wishes, as the cloud of dark, roiling color dropped to the floor of the cavern and began to spread out, she felt herself being pushed back away from them, across the sand paths and patches of green grass. In the next moment, the cloud coalesced into a being which stood between her and William and Spike.

It was … an angel. It had wings like hers, only raven black and shimmering with the colors she’d seen boiling in the cloud. The hues that glimmered from the shining wings were breathtaking, changing and shifting with every movement of the sleek, black feathers. The wings spread out from a tall, exquisitely chiseled, masculine angel with rich, chocolate brown skin. He had flowing hair of the same iridescent black as his wings, which tumbled silkily around his bare, boulder-like shoulders. He wore only a loincloth around his hips, leaving no doubt that his Gold’s Gym membership had not been neglected or forgotten. The muscles on the angel’s back rippled as he lifted his wings higher; all the brilliant and subtle hues of color that shimmered off the feathers made Buffy gasp in awestruck breathlessness. They spread out twice as large as Buffy’s – both higher and wider – blocking her view of the two halves of Spike.  That brought her out of her reverie as a bolt of panic shot through her and spurred her into action.

“Spike! William!” she cried, as she started moving back toward them.

The angel turned dark, fathomless eyes on her, and Buffy stopped in her tracks. They weren’t simply eyes. They were … infinity. The universe swirled in their depths. They were bottomless, endless, unfathomable. They were creation and destruction, damnation and salvation, life and death. It took her a few moments to pull her eyes away from the angel’s. It left her feeling disoriented and small, insignificant.

“W-Who … are you?” she stammered, trying to keep from falling to her knees under the weight of the gaze upon her.

“Zadkiel,” the being replied in the same ear-shattering, basso rumble of the thunder. “Thou doth not belongeth in this square, Champion.  The demon alone is mine own quarry.”

“Quarry? What does that—?"

The angel waved a dismissive hand toward Buffy, as if shooing a fly away from a plate of food, cutting off her question. The air was driven painfully from Buffy’s lungs in a whoosh of expelled breath as she was hurtled back and up, sailing out of the top of the mountain and up toward the gently glowing light of William’s soul.

She struggled to regain control, to stop, to turn, to get back. She managed to slow her ascent with her wings, but a force larger than herself pressed against her. As the Slayer continued to fight against the invisible energy that propelled her away, she heard growls of fury, screams of defiance, and bellows of evangelical admonition filling the whole of William’s soul.

The shouts and cries of man, demon, and angel alike thundered over the landscape, breaking loose avalanches of snow from the mountaintops and shattering the ice that covered the blood swamp. Buffy fought harder, using every drop of will and strength, but it simply was not enough to stop her ascent. She continued to float away from them, up towards the sun, unable to stop, unable to help, unable to do anything but cry their names until she was engulfed in the brilliant light and glowing warmth of William’s soul.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Back in the Hellmouth, only a millisecond had passed within the confines of the magic. Spike’s and Buffy’s souls separated again, forced apart by the same magic that had brought them together, ripping them from each other’s embrace. The two warriors screamed in agony as their souls were torn asunder, their bodies arching in pain as the scarlet beams of magical light constricted around them like an iron fist.

In that moment, the two mystical, blood-covered artifacts – scythe and amulet – clattered together, and an ear-shattering, bone-rattling thunderbolt exploded at the point of impact. Even the deepest, darkest corners of the cavern were filled with a blinding, burning light, which incinerated all the Turok-Han that it touched. Boulders began raining down from the ceiling like a monsoon of stone and sand, and the whole world, from Abu Dhabi to Zurich, seemed to quiver and quake with the power of the blast. The light that had been beaming down on Spike from heaven vanished with another loud ‘crack’, every drop of its power having been consumed by the violent blast.

Buffy and Spike were both blown up high into the air by the force of the explosion, the amulet and scythe knocked away from them, the two mystical weapons fused together from the heat of the detonation. The two warriors flew through the air, tumbling helplessly head over heels. They crashed against the ceiling of the cavern before plummeting back down near the base of the stairs like rag dolls, both knocked completely out.

“Spike! Buffy!” Sam cried, hurrying down the lurching, crumbling stairs. Riley followed her, only a step behind.

Sam reached Buffy first and lifted her in one heaving motion onto her shoulder, into a fireman’s carry. “Get Spike!” she ordered Riley.

Instead, Riley wrested the unconscious Slayer from Sam’s shoulder and onto his. “Get the scythe!” he instructed Sam, jerking his head toward the once shiny, now tarnished, scorched mystical weapon.

“What the fuck, Ri!?” Sam exclaimed, trying to reclaim Buffy’s lifeless form from her husband. “I can carry her – you get Spike!”

“No time!” he yelled back over the rumbling of the quaking cavern as he turned away and started up the stairs with the Slayer. “Get the scythe! Let’s go!”

“Help me with Spike, you fucking bastard!” Sam screamed at his back as he ascended the stairs, leaving her standing next to Spike’s unmoving form.

“THERE’S NO TIME! COME ON! RUN!” Riley insisted as the stairs shuddered and pitched under his feet.

Sam let out a furious wail of frustration, but wasted no further time arguing with the departing soldier. She pulled Spike away from the stairs, laying him flat out on his back on the quaking, lurching stone floor. Backing up a step, she took a deep breath before launching herself into a Ranger roll to get his lifeless body onto her shoulders.

The soldier somersaulted forward grabbing the vampire’s jeans at the cuff on his right leg with her left hand, and planting her right shoulder in Spike’s abdomen as she rolled over. Using her momentum, she brought him with her, curling his body over her shoulders as she rolled. She came to a stop on her knees with Spike draped over her shoulders, limp and lifeless. Sam set herself again, securing the unconscious vamp on her shoulders, holding one arm and one leg around her neck so he couldn’t fall. She exhaled, coming to one knee, placing her other foot out in front of her, her knee bent at a ninety-degree angle, preparing to rise.  Without wasting any more time, she pushed up from her knee to her feet, lifting his weight with a grunt of effort. She staggered a moment, a combination of the movement of the floor and the extra weight, before starting up the stairs.

“What the fuck!?” Faith asked as she rushed down the crumbling stairs toward the soldier and her unconscious burden.

Sam had no breath to answer her but waved her free hand at the scythe which still lay several feet away. Faith rushed down past the soldier as Sam pushed herself beyond her limits to get up the tilting, collapsing stairs with her cargo. Faith jumped down the last of the steps, sailed across the lurching floor, and grabbed the scythe just as she heard the detonations begin in the basement above.

“Shit!” she swore, racing back up the stairs two and three at a time, skipping over the ones that had cracked into little more than stony rubble, barely making it to the top before the whole staircase collapsed beneath her.

Sam had just made it out of the small room where the seal was and into the basement hallway that led back to the stairs and the safety of the portal. Her steps faltered and wavered under Spike’s weight, the ground heaved beneath her feet and exhaustion began to overtake her as she fought to make it out with her burden.

“TRADE!” Faith insisted, shoving the scythe into Sam’s free hand before shifting Spike’s lifeless body from the soldier’s back and onto hers. “RUN!”

Sam had no energy left to run, but she ran anyway, fueled by pure fear-induced adrenaline. The floor shook and shuddered beneath her feet as explosions rocked the school, taking out all the key supports that kept it standing. She ducked and lurched from side to side as C-4 blasts continued through the basement, taking out the supports on either side of the main hallway.  She could feel Faith right on her heels and that made her run faster; if she didn’t get out, then Faith wouldn’t get out, and neither would Spike.

A vision of her telling a grief-stricken Buffy that she wasn’t able to save Spike flashed in Sam’s mind.  The pain of it made her breath catch in her throat momentarily, but then sent a new rush of adrenaline surging through her. Her feet moved even faster – they had to get out of here. All of them.

The walls threatened to close in on them as blocks crumbled and cracked, falling into their path, and metal beams twisted with eerie, tortured screams of pain. Sam ran faster. Faster than she thought she ever could. She scrambled over debris, ducking under fallen beams, always looking back to make sure Faith was still there, still moving, still behind her. Finally, after what seemed like miles of running, she reached the basement stairs. She sprinted up them, slamming the heavy, double doors open, and made it into the main hallway of the school.

“GO! GO! GO!” Faith screamed from behind her as the floor began to give way beneath their feet, the school was collapsing in on itself, falling into the depths of hell.

They darted for the portal, a shiny oasis in the center of the hallway. It seemed so close, but impossibly far away. The walls began to tumble, falling in on them in tidal waves of drywall and wood. Choking, blinding plaster dust filled the air, limiting their vision and further impeding their progress. They dodged around the crumbling walls or just stumbled over them, scrambled under fallen support beams, and constantly fought off falling ceiling tiles and dangling wires that threatened to snag them.  

Sam looked back often to make sure Faith was still with her, turning back and giving her a hand to get over some of the more treacherous debris. They were both choking and coughing, their eyes were watering from the dust that filled the air, but they both kept going, pushing, resolute on escape.

And then, somehow, they were there. The portal was just a step away. They had made it.

Only … no, they hadn’t. The lurching, heaving floor suddenly dropped five feet, knocking them both down flat on the debris-strewn linoleum, leaving the portal five feet above them.

“FUCK!” Faith screamed, dragging herself out from under Spike’s motionless body.

“Boost me up!” Sam ordered, getting beneath the portal and tossing the scythe through, her feet set wide as she tried to keep her balance on the lurching floor. “Then hand up Spike and I’ll pull you up.”

Faith didn’t have time to argue, she clasped her hands together in a stirrup, bending her knees and lowering her center of gravity. Sam set one foot in them firmly and reached up for the portal. Faith lifted, trying to keep her balance on the heaving floor and hoping it didn’t fall further. Sam put one foot on Faith’s shoulder and launched herself through the shimmering light, tumbling onto the floor of the mansion on the other side.

“What the hell!?” Kennedy demanded, looking from the tarnished scythe to the bloody, dirty, ghost-like soldier that had just rolled against her legs.

“Faith! Spike!” Sam choked out, barely able to get enough breath as she waved a hand toward the portal. “Help them…”

Kennedy made to step through the portal, but stopped just in time, realizing there was no floor on the other side. She saw Faith picking Spike up and the girl dropped down onto her stomach on the floor and reached through the shimmering light to help pull him through. Faith raised his arms up and Kennedy clasped her fingers around his wrists and began trying to haul him up.  

Sam grabbed the Slayer’s feet to help as Kennedy struggled with the awkward task of trying to lift a lifeless body up while lying on her stomach. It was actually impossible, Slayer or not. There just was no leverage, physically no way to lift higher than the floor she was lying on.

Suddenly Riley appeared beside his wife, taking one of Kennedy’s ankles in his large hands and tugging the girl back. Between the two soldiers pulling and Faith lifting from below, they were able to get Spike up off the crumbling floor of the high school and closer to safety.

Just as Spike’s lolling head topped the floor of the mansion, the floor beneath Faith dropped another couple of feet, drawing curses from the Slayer that would’ve made a sailor’s dead grandmother blush. And then, with a loud groan of resignation, the entire building finally gave in to its fate, collapsing completely. Faith jumped up, grabbing onto Spike’s waist, holding on for dear life as the world fell away from beneath her feet.

The sudden, extra weight took everyone by surprise and Kennedy’s legs were jerked from the soldiers’ grip. Kennedy let out a long, desperate cry with the extra effort of holding both Spike and Faith, gritting her teeth as she was pulled forward out of the open portal. She struggled with all her new Slayer strength to keep her grip on Spike’s wrists while trying to stop her slide along the slick, stone floor. She tried to dig the toes of her shoes into the floor for leverage, but it barely slowed her down as she slid further through the portal.

Sam and Riley lurched forward, grabbing Kennedy’s ankles again to stop her from being pulled out of the portal completely.  At the same time, Faith tried to shimmy up Spike’s body, climbing him like a set of monkey bars on the playground, to try and get through the portal to help the young Slayer. The movement, added to the extra weight, threatened to pull Spike’s wrists from Kennedy’s now sweaty, exhausted grip.

“Stop moving!” the girl demanded as she dangled dangerously through the opening, her upper body all the way to her waist hanging down into thin air. Kennedy swung high above a deep, ominous crater that used to be Sunnydale High, and she could see and hear it growing deeper and larger by the second. She felt like she was going to be pulled in two, with Riley and Sam gripping her ankles, trying to pull her back, and Faith trying to clamber up Spike’s lifeless body to safety.

Sam and Riley held onto Kennedy’s ankles for dear life, pulling back with all their very depleted strength as they screamed for help. Where the fuck was everybody?

It seemed forever before anyone came, but certainly wasn’t more than a moment or two. Slayers and soldiers alike appeared from the second portal where they’d taken refuge, as had been the plan and their orders.  Strong hands pulled Kennedy back, relieving the soldiers of their burden, some reaching through the portal to help her keep hold of Spike and Faith.

Finally, Faith, Kennedy, Sam, and Riley all lay breathless on the cool, stone floor of the mansion, utterly exhausted, trembling with fatigue, fear, and waning adrenaline. Spike lay next to them, still unconscious and unmoving. Their rescuers stood nearby, talking excitedly, looking at the scorched scythe that had a glittering amulet fused to the blade, and sharing war stories and speculations with each other.

“Oh fuck, did you feel that?” Faith asked after just a few moments of rest, tiredly pushing herself up to a seated position.

“The floor … it’s gonna go!” Sam agreed as she sat up, too.

“We need to get out of here!” Faith urged everyone. “NOW!”

The exhausted warriors stumbled to their feet with the help of nearby Slayers and soldiers, their legs wobbly and weak beneath them. But they didn’t have far to go … just through one more portal to join the others who had left before the battle.

Amanda headed for Spike as the others began to quickly pass through the portal that led to safety. She tugged on his arm, bending down and lifting it over her shoulder and then standing up, trying to get him to his feet, but with little success. He was completely lifeless, and he crumpled and swayed like a hundred and fifty pounds of wobbly Jell-O against her side.

“Geez! How did you get him out like this? It’s like trying to push a rope uphill … a really heavy, drunken rope,” Amanda remarked as Faith came up and got on the other side of the vampire, draping his other arm over her shoulders to help steady him.

Faith shook her head and looked at Sam. “Sam did it.”

Sam shook her head as they headed for the portal, the floor beneath them beginning to tremble and crack dangerously.  “We all did it.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

They stepped out of the quaking mansion in Sunnydale and onto a cool, soft lawn that was the back garden at the Devon Coven in England. The sun was low in the sky, nearly down, and long shadows from the tall trees around the edge of the lawn covered the grounds.

“Oh, dear Lord!” Giles exclaimed seeing the blood-splattered, unconscious vampire draped over the two Slayers’ shoulders.

Sam dropped to her knees in the cool grass, then simply collapsed all the way down, utterly exhausted. Faith handed her burden off to Giles, and did the same, her legs giving out from beneath her. She didn’t fall, exactly, but kind of whooshed down to a sitting position on the lawn, then fell onto her back in the soft grass. 

Riley lowered himself onto the grass as well, trying to get his breath back from the effort and adrenaline of the battle and the rescues. He’d run the whole way out of the Hellmouth, through the basement, down the hallway in the high school and through both portals with Buffy. He’d delivered her safely here in England, into Giles’ arms, before heading back to find Sam and Faith. Despite Buffy’s relatively small size, running with an extra person on your shoulder while a building collapsed around you was exhausting.

“What happened?” Giles asked as he and Amanda laid Spike down on one of the many hospital gurneys they’d had ready, just in case. Most had not been needed. Thankfully, there were only a few seriously injured Slayers who had returned. In the confusion, a full roll-call had not yet been completed, so neither Slayer nor soldier death tolls had yet been tabulated.

“We won,” Faith muttered exhaustedly.

“Well, that’s excellent news, but I was looking for a bit more detail,” Giles urged, walking back over to her as Spike was wheeled toward the large, stone manor house that served as the coven’s headquarters.

“They lost,” Faith expounded, her voice thick with fatigue. “Hellmouth closed for renovations.”

“But, what happened to Buffy and Spike?” Giles pressed worriedly.

Faith shook her head, her eyes closed, unable to even open them now that they’d shut.

“There was an explosion … the scythe …” Sam filled in from where she lay near Faith, forcing her gritty eyes open and lifting her head to look around for the weapon.

Kennedy stepped up and handed it to Giles, turning it so he could see the amulet where it had fused to the blade.

“Good lord,” Giles muttered, turning it back and forth in his hand. “Is it still … viable?” he asked, looking at Kennedy.

“Yeah, actually, it feels even stronger,” she assured him with a small shrug. “But it’s different, a bit … I don’t know, darker? It’s hard to explain.”

Giles handed the scythe to Amanda who took it in both hands. She closed her eyes, her long face screwing up in concentration a few moments before looking back at the new head of the Watchers Council. “Yeah, it’s … just _off_. It’s definitely strong, but it’s not as … shiny? I mean on the inside.”

Giles furrowed his brow. “Shiny on the inside?” he repeated a little incredulously. “Faith, would you mind?” he asked, taking it back from Amanda and handing it down towards the Slayer lying on the ground.

Faith sighed in exasperation and reluctantly blinked her watering eyes open to take it from him. “It feels like Spike,” she announced immediately, handing it back.

“How, pray tell, can you determine that, and so quickly?” Giles wondered, taking it back from her.

She shrugged, blinking her watering eyes against the grit and dirt. “Cos I’ve been around Spike?” she surmised. “Every vampire feels different. Usually they turn dusty pretty fast, so you don’t pay that much attention to it – you just know: ‘vampire’. But Spike or Angel …” She shrugged again, now squinting and blinking up at Giles, still trying to get the dust out of her eyes. “I could tell them apart with my eyes closed. That energy feels like Spike.”

“And what, exactly, does Spike feel like?” Giles wondered.

Faith snorted out a little laugh. “Hot sex, cheap whiskey, fast cars, and rock n’ roll,” she replied, perhaps sarcastically, Giles wasn’t sure.

The Watcher rolled his eyes, deciding she was being a smartass. He turned his attention back to the scythe, turning the scorched weapon over in his hands and studying it.  “How very odd,” he muttered, his brows drawn together in puzzlement.

Sam pushed herself up to sitting, rubbing at her watering, stinging eyes which were caked with dirt and plaster dust. After getting her vision somewhat cleared, she stumbled to her feet with a small groan of effort and pain. Everything seemed to hurt now that she’d stopped moving and wasn’t in imminent threat of death – her knees, her back, her feet, her shoulders – and every muscle in her body quivered with fatigue. Spent and nerve-weary, she began hobbling slowly toward the manor.

“Where are you going?” Riley asked her, sitting up to look at her. “The barracks are that way,” he told her, pointing toward the trees at the very back of the property where tents had been set up.

“I’m going to check on Spike and Buffy,” she told him, not looking back as she made her way across the lawn toward the door where they’d taken Spike.

“Right … I’ll come with you,” he offered, pushing up to his feet.

Sam stopped and turned then, her dirt-streaked face set in a stony expression. “How about you don’t,” she suggested coldly.

“What? Why?” Riley questioned, walking up toward her.

“Oh, I don’t know. How about being a damn traitor?” she offered, sneering at him.

“What are you talking about?” the big man asked, stepping up in front of her.

“What am I talking about?” she repeated incredulously, her voice rising enough for everyone on the lawn to hear her.  “How about Dereliction of Duty? Your decision to leave Spike behind! Or have you forgotten that part of our oath: ‘I will never leave a fallen comrade.’”

“I couldn’t carry them both!” Riley argued. “I had to make a decision to save as many people as I could! There was no ‘Dereliction of Duty’ by anyone’s standards!”

“It was by MY standards! You didn’t have to carry them _both_! I could’ve carried Buffy! But, no! You took her and left me and Spike,” Sam spat back at him, her hands curling into fists at her sides.

“Well, she is the _human_ in this scenario!” Riley shot back. “Isn’t that what we do? Save humans?! We kill demons, or have you forgotten? I did nothing wrong!”

“Nothing wrong?!!” she repeated incredulously. “Spike isn’t some rampaging demon! He has a soul! He’s her husband! Spike—”

“Is a vile, evil creature! Just because he’s somehow tricked Buffy into banging him doesn’t change that!” Riley retorted, cutting his wife off.

“ _Tricked_?” Sam barked out sarcastically, shaking her head. “You’re a piece of work. What did you think? If you saved her, showed her what a hero you were and got rid of Spike, that she’d fall back into your arms?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You don’t know Spike like I do! I’m telling you, he’s a monster!” Riley insisted.

“Well, if I’m ridiculous and he’s a monster, then you’re a fucking bastard,” Sam informed him furiously, pulling her fist back and clocking him in the jaw with every last bit of strength she had left, whipping his head to the side with an audible ‘ _crack’_. “Go fuck yourself.”

Sam turned on her heel, leaving Riley standing there, stunned, as she headed for the house. She did her best to not stumble or simply collapse as she stalked away, which would totally ruin the effect she was going for.

“Why are you defending him!? He’s nothing but trouble! He doesn’t love you, ya know!” Riley called after her, rubbing his jaw tenderly.

Sam whirled around, anger pumping more adrenaline into her exhausted body, and snapped, “Do you even know the meaning of that word?”

“Do _you_?!” he challenged, bravely or foolishly stalking back up to her. “You’ve been making a fool out of yourself, swooning over that piece of shit ever since—”

“He saved my life and stopped the Suvolte?” Sam filled in angrily. “He’s my _friend_! He’s loyal and honorable and brave,” Sam informed him vehemently. “Which are a few more words that seem lost on you!

“News flash, Ri: That _evil creature_ that you’re so jealous of and hate so much has more integrity, more _honor_ in his little finger than you have in your whole fucking body. He would never leave anyone in the field – not even _you_.

“And, for your information, I do not _swoon_!” she hissed before turning on her heel and heading up the stairs and into the house, leaving Riley standing on the lawn staring after her.

“Dude, you are so fucked, and not in the good way,” Faith taunted, still lying on her back in the cool grass.

“Shut up, Faith,” Riley growled, fuming, as he headed away from the house, out to where the tents had been set up for the soldier’s barracks. 

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Sam leaned back heavily against the door after she’d slammed it shut behind herself, letting her eyes fall closed and her head drop. Tears stung her eyes, threatening to fall as her heart churned and constricted in her chest. Things hadn’t been great with Riley lately, but she never thought that he’d actually do anything this cold-hearted and underhanded.

Did he think Buffy would take him back if he got rid of Spike? And, if so, just where did that leave her? Or did Riley just hate Spike that much? Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Buffy, but everything to do with Spike.

She shook her head, trying and failing to find any way to understand the logic behind Riley leaving a comrade behind like that. He could’ve carried the vampire; she could’ve carried Buffy. They could’ve gotten them both out of there before the whole damn school fell into the Hellmouth. What he’d done had not only put her and Spike in danger, but Faith and even Kennedy, as well.

But he had chosen to leave Spike. Consciously chosen to ignore one of their oaths to leave no one behind. If Faith hadn’t come back again, she and Spike would both be at the bottom of that pit that had been Sunnydale High. She knew that Spike would not have left her if the roles had been reversed, and Sam would not have left him. Period.

Sam swallowed hard, pushing back her anger and heartache, blinking a few times to stem the tide of tears. She didn’t have time for them now, maybe later she could indulge herself, but not yet.

“Are you okay?” Tara asked, walking up from one of the long hallways in the old, stone mansion.

Sam took a deep breath and nodded, pushing off the door and standing up. “Fine,” Sam replied. Spike’s voice ringing in her mind, wondering if she knew the meaning of the word, made the corners of her mouth quirk up slightly.  “How are Spike and Buffy? Can I see them?”

“They’re still unconscious – Dawn, Xander, and Willow are with them. But you’re bleeding,” Tara pointed out, reaching for the other woman’s shoulder.

Sam looked down to see that the sleeve of her shirt was torn, and blood was oozing from a long, deep gash in her deltoid. She hadn’t even felt it. Had no idea how or when it happened. For the first time since getting out of the Hellmouth she took stock of herself. She was covered in dirt, plaster-dust, and debris from head to toe. She knew her face must be smeared with dirt, her hair covered in the same white powder that coated her clothes, giving the impression she might be a specter. Her body was bone-weary, the muscles of her legs trembling as if she’d run ten marathons.

“I ... I’m okay. I’d like to see them, but maybe I should clean up a little,” she admitted, trying to give Tara a reassuring smile, but failing miserably.

“S-sure,” Tara agreed, returning the smile more effectively. “Just down here, you can get a shower or bath … whatever you want. There are some bandages and stuff in there too. I can help if you need help bandaging the arm—”

“No, it’s nothing … ‘tis but a scratch,” Sam quipped dryly as she followed Tara down the hallway, their steps echoing off the bare, stone walls. Sam thought it sounded a lot like her heart felt right now – barren, empty, and hollow.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Sam sank down in the deep, old, claw-footed tub with a sigh of relief. The water was piping hot and felt wonderful against her battered, exhausted body. She closed her eyes and settled her head against the cool, porcelain back of the tub, letting her whole body go limp in the soothing water. She tried to relax her mind, as well, to stop her racing thoughts from running everything that had happened that day over and over and over again. It didn’t work.

“I am an American soldier,” Sam recited from memory, her voice a low rasp in the quiet room. “I am a warrior and a member of a team. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. I am a guardian of freedom. I am an American Soldier.”

After the nightmare of being the only survivor of a demon attack in Central America while serving in the Peace Corps, she’d found a new purpose in the Black Ops. It had provided her with a safe, solid foundation to begin her life over yet again and she’d made the most of it. She enjoyed the work, enjoyed helping people, she felt like she really made a difference in the world – like her life had a purpose. She’d worked hard to be the best soldier she could be while building a new life around the Army and her marriage.

Both had betrayed her in one moment of unbelievable, selfish insanity.  

A sob shook her exhausted body as the depth of that loss sank in. “Why, Ri, why?” she cried, her salty tears washing streaks of despair through the battlefield grime that still clung to her face. Her eyes had been opened in that basement with Spike all those months ago, opened to the shades of grey in the world. But Riley never would acknowledge it. She’d tried. Oh, God, she’d tried with all her heart and soul to make him see, but he never would.

Looking back, that fateful night in Sunnydale had been the beginning of the end for their marriage, but she’d refused to accept it.  She’d been determined to make it work, telling herself that he’d come around, that he just needed to see it for himself. But anytime they came across any shades of grey in their work, Riley steadfastly refused to open his eyes to it.

Demons were evil; they must die. Period.

She realized now that she’d been trying to save Riley. Just like she saved civilians from the monsters, she had wanted to save him from the dark hatred that festered inside him. But he didn’t want saving.

She sobbed as that realization washed over her. It was over. Riley could not be saved. Their marriage could not be saved. Buffy had been right all those months ago when she said trying to help Riley was like trying to teach a rock to float.  

She looked down at the gold wedding band on her finger; it suddenly seemed to symbolize cold, icy betrayal instead of love and devotion.  She tugged on the band, twisting it off her finger, and dropped it into the sudsy water, letting it disappear beneath the foam. It ‘tinked’ lightly on the porcelain when it hit bottom, a hollow echo of loss in the silence.  Her heart ached with the finality of the gesture and as her tears ran in rivers down her cheeks.

She’d never felt so utterly alone as she did right now.  But she’d been alone before, and she was tougher and stronger now than she’d ever been. Then she remembered Spike’s words to her from earlier, they rang in her mind like a warm embrace – _she had friends, she was not alone_.

This would not break her, she swore to herself. This would lead her life down another new road, but it wouldn’t destroy her. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sam resolved that this would make her stronger.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Sam slipped quietly into the dimly lit room after cleaning up and bandaging her wounds. Tara had brought her some clean clothes to put on which were a little more revealing than she was used to. A low-cut, red tank top that didn’t quite make it all the way to the top of the low-slung blue jeans, leaving a bit too much cleavage and a wide swath of tummy exposed. She felt uncomfortable in them, but until she could get out to the temporary barracks tents and get her own clothes, she supposed they’d have to do. At least they weren’t bloody and covered in grime.

There were several cots in the room, but only two were occupied, by Buffy and Spike. Dawn sat between the two unconscious warriors in a straight-backed, battered, wooden chair that looked like it might’ve been part of a dining room set at one time. She had her elbows propped on her knees and her forehead buried in her palms, her long hair falling forward, covering her face. When the girl turned to see who had entered, it was clear she’d been crying. Even in the dim light, Sam could see her eyes were swollen and ringed in red.

“Hey,” Sam greeted her in a low voice, as if speaking too loudly would disturb the two unconscious patients.

“Hey,” Dawn replied just as softly as she wiped at her eyes and cheeks to clear away her tears.

“How are they?” Sam asked, coming up to stand on the other side of Spike from Dawn.

Dawn shrugged. “No one can seem to find anything really wrong with them. We got them cleaned up, but … they aren’t hurt, they just won’t wake up.”

Sam frowned and pulled the sheet back from Spike’s shoulders to reveal his chest, then looked back at Dawn. “He was bleeding from a cut on his chest before the explosion. And Buffy was …” Sam hesitated, not wanting to alarm Dawn with how badly Buffy had been injured. “She was bleeding, too. On her arms and legs. She doesn’t have any injuries?”

Dawn shook her head, pulling one of Buffy’s arms out from under the white sheet that covered her to show Sam the unblemished skin – not even a bruise marred it.

Sam furrowed her brow and touched a hand down on Spike’s chest where she was sure Buffy had cut him with the scythe. “What the hell?” she muttered. “He’s breathing … and warm.”

Dawn shrugged. “He breathes sometimes … I think old habits. Figured he was warm from the Hellmouth or something.”

Sam shook her head, her brows still furrowed in thought. “No, when he was unconscious before, when the Suvolte mangled him, he didn’t move at all – don’t you remember? And the Hellmouth, despite the name, wasn’t particularly warm.”

Sam reached down and pressed two fingers against the carotid artery in his neck as Dawn watched intently, her own brows knitted. After a moment, the soldier picked up one of Spike’s arms and did the same, checking the radial pulse in his wrist, and then uncovered his feet and checked the pulse next to his ankle on first his right, then his left foot. Finally, she moved back up to his chest and laid her ear against his chest, just over his heart.

After a few moments, the soldier looked back up at Dawn, who was still watching her with confused interest.

“Dawnie, he’s not a vampire anymore. He’s alive.”

 

* * *

 

[What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger -- Kelly Clarkson](https://youtu.be/Xn676-fLq7I)

_What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, stronger_  
_Just me, myself and I_  
_What doesn't kill you makes you stronger_  
_Stand a little taller_  
_Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone_

_Thanks to you I got a new thing started_  
_Thanks to you I'm not the broken-hearted_  
_Thanks to you I'm finally thinking 'bout me_  
_You know in the end_

_The day you left was just my beginning_

* * *

 

_Note: here is a Ranger Roll example with a victim that his heavier than the rescuer:_

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh! What happened with that big angel in Spike’s soul? What was all that magic swirling around them in the Hellmouth? Did that do something to Spike? Will he still be what Buffy needs when he wakes up? And what the actual fuck, Riley?!?! Thank goodness for Sam and non-order-following Faith! Sam needs to go hit Riley a few more times!
> 
> All these questions will be answered! Fair warning: There is going to be a big time-jump coming up, but just stick with me and all will be revealed! I promise! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! 
> 
> Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!


	85. Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been about 10 years since the battle in the Hellmouth. A lot has changed … some things, however, remain the same.
> 
> Easter Egg: There’s a small call out to The Dresden Files in here.

****

* * *

 

**Ten Years Later…**

Spike stood just at the edge of the surf, white sand beneath his bare feet, and looked back east, waiting for the sunrise. He did this most mornings. Alone on the beach. Surrounded by the sounds of nature: the pull of the tide, the lightening of the sky, the lapping of waves against the shore, the kiss of a gentle breeze upon his face.  No matter how many times he greeted the sunrise, it always filled him with a shiver of awe and thankfulness. He’d spent many decades at odds with the light, hiding from it. Now he welcomed it like a lover into his embrace, a warm caress of golden rays against his skin to remind him that he was alive. He was a creature of the light, not a monster in the dark.

Spike closed his eyes as the soft fingers of sunbeams topped the trees and house, gliding along the sand, reaching for him. He waited there, feeling the warmth of it skim slowly up his bare legs before slipping above his swim trunks to caress his tanned stomach and chest. And then he could feel it on his face, a wispy feather of heavenly radiance against his cheek. He took a deep, cleansing breath that filled him with a sense of nirvana-esque peace before opening his eyes again.

He could see Buffy standing on the terrace outside their bedroom, looking out at him, as she did most mornings, and the tableau was complete. He couldn’t make out details of her expression, it was just too far away, but could see her tousled, golden locks floating dreamily in the breeze as she lifted a hand and waved. He returned the gesture, a long-practiced routine, the familiarity of it warming his heart, like a refrain from a favorite song. He turned then and began to walk along the shoreline a few paces before taking off in a smooth, athletic jog, his swim trunks whispering gently against his legs as he ran. The air filling his lungs, the thudding of his heart as he ran, his pulse pounding in his ears, the sun against his skin – these were experiences he cherished every single day and vowed to never, ever take for granted.

He often wondered if he should pinch himself, just to find out if perhaps this life was a dream. But, honestly, he didn’t want to know. If it was, he was happy to keep sleeping, keep dreaming, for all eternity.

After a comfortable six-mile run along the shore, Spike neared his starting point on the beach behind the Spanish-style house they called home. He could see a large sailboat anchored just off shore as he approached and recognized it immediately. It was the ‘Fool Moon’ and it belonged to one of the guests who had been invited for the weekend festivities.  Spike spotted the redhead push a lemon-yellow kayak away from the larger boat and begin paddling into shore, so he waited there, stretching out his now warm, tingling muscles after his morning run.

Spike splashed out a few steps into the surf and pulled the kayak up onto the dry sand, greeting their guest with, “The prodigal werewolf returns, and just in time fer breakfast.”

“I’ve been working on my timing,” Oz admitted in his characteristic laconic manner, stopping just short of smiling at Spike as he stood up on the sand. “Two birds with one well-timed rock – dry feet and flavorsome Count Chocula.”

Spike snorted as Oz unstrapped a backpack from the kayak and swung it over his shoulder. “Hate t’ tell ya this, but I don’t think they make that particular monster mash anymore.”

Oz stopped and looked at him, his face a mask of reserved stoicism. “That’s disturbing on so many levels. What happened? Did Buffy dust him?”

Spike barked out a laugh as he grabbed the rope on the front of the kayak and started dragging it further up the beach toward the house, Oz walking alongside. “Buffy would never dust anything made o’ chocolate, mate. Might’a licked the Count to death.”

“Licked to death. Stop and marvel at the concept,” Oz observed, almost letting a bit of wistful inflection escape – almost.

“Bloody brilliant way t’ go,” Spike agreed, smirking at the shorter man. “Can still go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, I reckon,” Spike suggested.

“It’s just not the same,” Oz sighed, shaking his head mournfully, but his tone remained dry when he spoke. “It was the marshmallow bits that made the Count monstrously delicious.”

“Got some o’ those little marshmallows fer the hot chocolate I’ll sacrifice,” Spike suggested, dropping the kayak near the bottom of the stairs that led up from the beach to the house. “Just don’t let the bits see where I hide ‘em.”

Oz concurred with a nod. “You are a true-blue friend.

“Are the girls here?” the werewolf asked as they started up the gently rising staircase to the house, which was perched up on the cliff above.

“No, but we can give ‘em a bell. ‘Course, takes soddin’ forever t’ gather up all the gear to get a sprog outta the house. When they get big enough to not need all the gear, then ya gotta stop three times a bloody hour for them t’ pee. World’s smallest bladders, they have. Don’t know how anyone ever gets anywhere with the little buggers,” Spike revealed.

Oz nodded. “So, where does Daniel score on the decampment scale?”

Spike considered a moment. “Let’s see then, Tara’s cub is three, yeah? It’s hard t’ say – in between. Still need t’ pack toys and mopping-up rags, changes o’ clothes for accidents, some baggies o’ Cheerios and juice boxes, but also gotta stop for piss breaks every fifteen minutes. Bloody rough, that age is.

“’Course, with Red preggers with pup number two and about to pop, she’s gotta stop every five minutes, so that works out. Best guess, it’ll take ‘em three hours to get here.”

“They live, like, ten miles away,” Oz pointed out.

“Exactly,” Spike agreed.

“Well, that's fairly freaksome.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Oz!” Buffy exclaimed as the two men walked into the house. She held up a finger to them and spoke back into the phone she was holding to her ear. “Your baby-daddy’s here! Yeah … yeah, okay. I’ll tell him. No, I won’t forget, fashionista demons living in a dumpster behind the mall, we got it. Okay, see you soon!”

Buffy pressed a button on the phone and stepped over to give Oz a hug. “Welcome back! How’ve you been? Where’ve you been? Did you bring me any presents?”

Oz returned the hug tightly before releasing her. “Still a sexy werewolf of the high seas. Peru and Chile. Don’t I always?” he answered her questions, dropping his backpack from his shoulder. The redhead started rummaging in it, finally pulling out a handful of Maraná dark, rich chocolate bars.

“Direct from the land of the Incas,” Oz explained. “They might’ve melted a little. They didn’t fall overboard this time – you’ll have to add your own sea salt.”

“Oooo!” Buffy exclaimed, bringing them to her nose and inhaling their rich scent, her eyes closing in pleasure.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Spike complained, sniffing as if terribly insulted that he didn’t get any gift.

“Buffy’s pretty much the pâté, I’d rate you as humus,” Oz replied, holding up a finger as he rummaged a bit more in his bag before extracting a bottle of Pisco, Peruvian Brandy, and held it out to Spike.

Spike took it, looking supremely pleased, and studied the label. Translating into English he read aloud, “Encanto – Charm. Valley of the Inca’s. Distiller’s Reserve, tastes of almonds and apricot blossoms, with lingering notes of chocolate.”

Spike frowned at Oz. “Nice try, mate, but I’ll never get a bloody drop,” he revealed, handing the bottle to Buffy.

“Humus, dude,” Oz reminded him with a shrug.

“Chocolate brandy?” Buffy swooned, looking up from the bottle to Oz. “Will you marry me?”

Oz furrowed his brows and looked at Spike, who rolled his eyes, and then back to Buffy. “If my math is right, I think that would be one too many foxes in the henhouse. Of course, math class fell conveniently during my naptime, so I could be wrong.”

“I thought _every_ class was your naptime,” Buffy pointed out.

Oz shrugged. “The life of a one chord guitar savant. It’s brutal being a rock star. That was my sarcastic voice.”

“You know, it sounds a lot like your regular voice,” Buffy laughed, remembering the nights at the Bronze dancing to his band, Dingoes Ate My Baby. She was sure Willow dragged her there every single time they were playing during their last couple of years of high school.

“So I’ve been told,” Oz admitted in the same even, uninflected tone.

“Oh, by the way, Willow says she’s going to kick you in the kidneys when she sees you, just like your son keeps doing to her. So, you might want to, you know, be ready for that,” Buffy warned him.

Oz nodded. “I was pretty much banking on her finding it cute. Plan B: I brought gifts. I can use them as a shield.

“But first, Spike promised some puffs of the chocolate variety and little marshmallows from his private reserve.”

“Oh, wow!” Buffy exclaimed as the three of them started walking toward the kitchen. “What did you have to do to wrench mini-marshmallows out of him? Should I be worried?”

“A marshmallow master never reveals his secrets,” Oz replied, his characteristic stoicism firmly in place.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 

The Louboutinic demons, which Willow had detected with her magical dragnet she kept around the area and told Buffy about that morning, hadn’t been much of problem for Spike. He’d had to look through a few dumpsters behind the mall to find them, but once found, he dispatched them easily. It wasn’t the first time they’d taken up residence there, being drawn by the aroma of designer shoes and stonewashed jeans, which they took perverse pleasure in devouring with the wearer still inside.

Spike gave the blade of the scythe one last wipe, making sure all the fashionista demon blood was off, before setting it back into its place on the wall with the other weapons.  Although the blade was tarnished and singed, the amulet that was imbedded in it sparkled, even in the filtered light of their bedroom. He touched a finger to it one more time, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes as he felt the powerful bloodlust reach out to him like an old, familiar – if cruel and ruthless – lover. It had been part of him for over a century, and it still felt natural as it flowed through every synapse of his body and right down to his soul.

Spike took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Even after all this time the battle with the archangel, Zadkiel, was as fresh in his mind as if it had happened just a moment ago. Touching the amulet brought it back in almost painfully vibrant technicolor:

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

William and Spike, the human and demonic spirit, stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the Herculean angel, determined to fight whatever judgement it had come to exact from them, to do their best to keep their promise to Buffy. They watched in horror as Zadkiel turned and flung Buffy away as if she were little more than a feather. Whatever hope they’d harbored about defeating this angel evaporated as they watched her vanish into the glowing ether above.

Spike turned his yellow, demonic eyes on William, his jaw clenched in determination. “Stay back and keep yer gob shut. I’ll handle this,” he ordered, stepping forward a pace and interspersing himself between William and the archangel just as Zadkiel turned back to face them.

“Thou shalt cometh with me,” the angel boomed, making Spike wince and cover his ears.

“Bloody hell, don’t ya have a volume control on that thing?” he complained, glaring at the massive heavenly being. He felt himself being drawn into the angel’s dark, bottomless eyes. There was a physical sensation of falling through space and time that made Spike’s head begin to spin, his stomach convulse, and his balance waver.

From behind Spike, William grabbed his shoulders, shaking him, breaking the eye contact with the heavenly being. “Are you wholly moronic? You do not look a predator in the eye unless you wish to be devoured!” William hissed.

Spike closed his eyes, shaking his head to clear the dizzying fog that had formed. “ _I’m_ the bloody predator here,” he growled back at William.

“Indeed? Well, meet the thing that turns foolhardy predators into hors d'oeuvres,” William countered sourly.

“Thou haseth mortal frailty. Pray, twill be of no concern to thee where thou art bound,” the dark mountain of an angel boomed again in answer to Spike’s question about volume control.

“But I barely know ya. No wine. No candles. No romance. Just expect me t’ run away with ya for a quick shag? What kind of demon do ya take me for? Granted, the wings are bloody amazing, and I don’t reckon I’ve seen twelve-pack abs before – is that bloody normal? Do ya have to work for those, or did Daddy just bestow ‘em? Bloody unfair, that is,” Spike sniffed, regaining his composure. “In any case, not tempting me with those abs, mate – yer just not that pretty,” he shrugged.

“Insolence! Thou shalt cometh. It is written,” the angel boomed again.

“Where ya plan on taking me on this romantic getaway, then? Always fancied Bora Bora, m’self,” Spike suggested, curling his hands into fists, preparing to strike. He carefully kept his eyes on the angel’s chin rather than his eyes, which still required him to look up several inches.

“Hell,” the massive angel rumbled.

Spike nodded, doing his best to ignore the Metallica concert volume of the angel and the blood that was starting to dribble from his ears. “Ta ever so, but I do have a prior engagement. Leave yer card with my secretary and I’ll see if I can pencil that in next century … or the one after. Reckon you can see yourself out the way ya came in.”

Spike began to turn away from the angel, as if that solved that, but Zadkiel clamped one massive hand down on the vampire’s shoulder. Spike didn’t hesitate. With a growl of fury, the vampire grabbed the angel’s wrist with both hands and began to spin and move back to wrench the intruder’s arm up and behind him. Spike hit a brick wall made of iridescent feathers as he tried to force the angel’s arm up and back behind the big man. The vampire bounced against the unforgiving wing, his grip on the angel’s wrist jounced loose when he hit.

Zadkiel lifted his hand and clamped it around Spike’s throat, lifting the vamp up off the ground as if he weighed nothing. Spike tugged and scratched at the powerful fingers that squeezed around his throat, struggling to try and pull just one finger free with all his strength. A vision of his head simply being popped off his neck like a cork from a champagne bottle flashed through his mind, and he began kicking with his feet, aiming for the center of the gauzy, white loincloth. His first kick went wide of the intended target, smashing against the angel’s hip, but his second hit the mark, right in the being’s heavenly bollocks.

Zadkiel grunted in pain and his arm dropped a few inches, but his grip around Spike’s neck actually tightened.

“Cease thine vain labor against thine destiny,” the angel rumbled. “The bitter cold drizzle shall halt the demon driveth.”

“What in heaven’s name are you babbling on about?” William asked as he lifted one of the old Bringer’s daggers, which had been left from the battle with The First, and brought it down on the angel’s arm with a loud cry of effort.

The angel bellowed in pain and dropped a spluttering and moaning Spike to the grass at his feet. Zadkiel turned his fathomless, dark eyes on William, clutching his bleeding arm against his massive chest.

“I has't nay a quarrel with thee, human!” the angel rumbled. “I has't cometh to free thee from the bonds of the demon and restore thine will to thee.”

“Indeed?” William asked, arching a brow and looking between Spike, who was still on the ground rubbing his throat, and the angel. “You intend to remove the demon and leave me free from his influence? Wholly human?”

“Hath not I so proclaimed?” the angel growled, his patience running thin.  The deep slash that William had inflicted on Zadkiel’s arm had stopped bleeding and was nearly healed over. The angel flexed his fingers, testing them, and shifted his gaze back to Spike, who was just struggling back up to his feet.

William stepped between the angel and the struggling vampire, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin in defiance. “It may have escaped your notice that I am celebrating my sesquicentennial anniversary on this planet this very year. While that may seem like a mere blink of an eye to you, my good sir, I assure you that, without the demon, my mortality would arrive post-haste.”

“Thy mortal body wilt be’est restored to the identical occasion of the demon’s abolishment of thine force of life. Thou shalt be freed from the confines and domination of the demon scourge! Thou mortal life resumed,” the big angel explained.

“I see,” William replied contemplatively. “I will be a ‘real boy’ … just as I was before the demon claimed my body for his own? I will be exactly the same… fully human, with no demonic senses or strength?”

“Hath not I so stated?” Zadkiel asked again in a tone that indicated that any idiot should’ve understood by now.

“In that case, I must graciously decline your generous offer,” he informed the angel, gripping the hilt of the blade tightly.

“Thou hath been bent unwilling to the demon’s bidding. Thy will is not thine own, naught but a hostage of this demon bane. Incontestably thou haseth nay the sight to see – blinded by the fiendish scourge,” the angel replied, concluding that William’s will was not his own, that his denial of being set free was being controlled by the demon.

“Thou shalt be freed. Tis decreed,” Zadkiel boomed then, swiping one large fist at William before he could argue further, and sending him tumbling head over heels across the ground. William dropped the blade as he sprawled, dazed, in a patch of soft, warm sand a few feet away.

“Thy timeth is nigh, demon scourge,” the angel rumbled, taking a step toward Spike.

“Get bent!” Spike snarled, getting his feet back under him. The vamp roared a rumbling growl of defiance as he charged the angel, fangs and claws flashing. Spike hit the angel low, taking the large being’s legs out, and the two supernatural foes began to grapple and scrap on the ground, rolling over sand and grass, silken feathers flying.

William scrambled up and regained his feet, hastily retrieving the blade that he’d dropped.  He loosed a wordless scream of rage the depths of which he’d felt only once before, many, many years ago when he’d faced another tyrant – his father. The dagger in William’s hand morphed into that same, blood-soaked dueling sword he’d used on his father as he charged forward, diving into the fray. His lion’s heart was bound and determined to do all he could to keep the promise that had been made to Buffy: eternity – or die trying.

The promise was not just his, it was not just the demon’s – it was theirs as one being, one man, one heart. The two halves of one whole that Buffy needed, wanted, loved. One half without the other would not hold her love for the eternity they’d promised, of that he was certain. Yes, he knew that she loved him for his own sake, but he also knew that he – the human alone – was not enough. Not for her. Not for the Slayer. Both he and Spike would both live or both die now – two halves of one whole brought together by fate, destiny, or simply coincidence.

There is no such thing as coincidence.

William slashed his blade at dark skin, stabbing when he could, hacking madly when that was his only option. Spike punched and kicked, tore at flesh and feathers alike with fangs and claws. Blood and feathers flew, bellows of anger and pain filled the landscape from all three as they tumbled and grappled and raged. The angel was large, strong, but also fast and wily – a wicked combination in a fight. Punches from iron fists smashed into demon and human alike, rocking their heads and bruising their flesh.  Angels, it seemed, were also not above biting and kicking and scratching at eyes with sharp nails, nor roaring out deafening peals of thunder to stun their opponents.

More blood flew – demon and human and angel in equal measures. Flesh was blackened and swollen. Eyes watered and ears bled. Fists pulverized bone and body. Kicks drew sharp cries of agony. Teeth and fangs and steel sunk into muscle and sinew, tearing and ripping, leaving deep gashes and spurting blood.

Spike and William fought with everything they had – heart, soul, and demonic tenacity. They had given everything, every scrap of rage, every crumb of resolve, every steadfast drop of determination. But it was not enough.  With one final, ear-splitting bellow, the massive angel wrapped deadly fingers around the necks of the two gasping, bludgeoned, broken opponents, pinning them to the ground beneath him.

“IT IS DONE!” the bleeding angel proclaimed as he gained his feet, lifting Spike and William up with him, his fingers digging into their necks, threatening to decapitate them both.

Zadkiel shook them both like rag dolls. His wings – now dirty and ruffled with only a hint of their original luster remaining – lifted out wide as a deafening roar of victory bellowed from his thunderous lungs. The two combatants hung limply in the big angel’s grasp. They were dazed, spent, bleeding, bruised, and broken, utterly and wholly defeated – all hope completely snuffed out.

He tossed William aside, sending him sprawling bonelessly in a patch of green grass a few feet away. “Mine own quarrel is not with thee, human! Tis thine owneth reward I impart with the expunging of the demon bane.”

William moaned, trying to protest again, his head spinning. He hurt in places he’d previously not realized he had places. His eyes were swollen nearly closed, he tasted blood in his mouth, but wasn’t entirely sure if it was his or not. He tried to move, to sit up, but the world tilted and slammed him back to the ground with a painful thud.

“Thy timeth rises nigh, demon,” Zadkiel growled at Spike, still holding him by the neck, the vamp’s feet dangling lifelessly several inches above the ground.

William tried again to rise, to protest, to fight, and managed to roll over onto all fours and find the sword he had dropped. Every move was a struggle against the agony of his beaten, bleeding body. He could feel tears well behind his swollen lids and his heart splintering and shattering in his chest. It wasn’t enough. _He_ wasn’t enough. All was lost. Including, he knew here in the depths of his soul, Buffy.

Spike, too, continued to try and fight. He tried to lift his arms, kick his legs, but none of his limbs were responding. His mind swam, and a vision of Buffy, her eyes soft and loving, swirled through the mist of final death. _I’m so bloody sorry. I love you – always love you_. In his mind, _s_ he reached out a hand to him just as the world went black.

Zadkiel flapped his massive wings and, with two powerful thrusts, was airborne, his feet lifting off the ground, dragging the lifeless spirit of the demon with him. He glided past William, who was struggling to regain his feet, staggering and trembling with effort. William looked up to see Spike trailing along in the massive angel’s wake. He could feel the strength, the power, the instinct of the demon being pulled away from him, and with it the love of the only person in the world that truly mattered to him: Buffy.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” William screamed as he lunged forward, fueled by his shattering heart and all the love inside.

He struck Spike’s legs and wrapped his arms around them, holding on for dear life. The impact sent the angel off balance and he tilted, one wing smacking the ground with a jarring impact. The three combatants tumbled back to the ground, rolling with the momentum of the angel’s flight.

Zadkiel roared a thunderous, earth-shaking bellow of anger as he regained his feet and stalked back over to the dazed vampire.

“ENOUGH!” he snarled at William, who had gotten back to his feet, the sword still somehow clutched in his hand.

“Yes, I must agree, it is quite enough,” William growled back breathlessly.

The angel apparently mistook this for surrender and acquiescence. He turned his muscular back on the human and reached down to grasp one of Spike’s wrists when the sword was driven all the way to the hilt into the spot just between his wings in the center of Zadkiel’s back.

Zadkiel fell forward, landing on Spike with another earth-shaking thud of impact. Spike groaned in pain as the heavy angel pinned him to the ground, his giant wings falling limply to either side.

“Spike!” William exclaimed, bending down and tugging on the vampire’s legs, dragging him out from beneath the angel.

“You killed a bloody angel?!” Spike exclaimed when he was free from the weight of Zadkiel, and had turned to look back at the massive, limp form of his attacker.

“Well … I … errr … I … don’t believe that is possible,” William stammered, suddenly worried. He still tasted blood in his mouth. He decided it was his and he felt around with his tongue to find the source of it. Three … no, four loosened teeth and a gash on the inside of his cheek.

Spike raised his brows and looked between William and the unmoving body of the angel.  “How many more angels ya reckon they’ll send t’ avenge this one? Looks like you’ll be comin’ with me on the southbound train, mate.”

“No … I … archangels simply cannot be killed with … with … swords,” William contended. “Can they? Surely not,” he answered himself. “They are extensions of God with the power of the universe, after all. Immortal beings.”

Spike shrugged. “Just playin’ possum, then, I reckon,” the vamp suggested, moving forward to touch the toe of his boot to the angel’s bare foot.

Zadkiel moaned and Spike jumped back away from him. “Bloody hell!”

“What should we do?” William asked, eyes wide with fright.

“Runnin’ and hiding come t’ mind as a solid plan,” Spike suggested, looking around, trying to think.

William snorted. “That is not terribly demonic! I believe I’m rubbing off on you, which is quite inconvenient in this circumstance.”

“Oi! Watch yer tongue!” Spike objected. “Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor,” he insisted.

William pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. “Ah yes, your old ‘runaway strategy’. Have you applied for a trademark on that yet, or did Monty Python beat you to it?”

“Better runnin’ and hiding than burning in hell!” Spike spat back. 

“Perhaps we could reason with him,” William suggested.

“Yeah, cos that worked so well the first time,” Spike snarked.

“Oh, dear …” William breathed, backing up warily, as the mountain of an angel began to rise. The sword had gone all the way through the thick, muscular torso of the angel. The bloody tip of it protruded several inches from his chest, blood trickled down over his smooth, dark skin, staining the once-white loincloth with brilliant red.

Spike limped over next to William, keeping a wary eye on their foe. “Any brilliant ideas t’ keep me outta hell would be welcome just now,” the vampire said as Zadkiel straightened to his full height and turned his disconcerting, and now furious, eyes on them.

William stepped forward, hands spread out before him in a placating gesture. “My dear sir. I believe we may have gotten off on the wrong foot. If you will allow me to remove that sword from your back, I’m certain we could …”

The angel clasped the point of the sword with one hand, pressing it back into his chest as he flapped his wings twice, then stretched them up behind him. The sword fell from his flesh, landing soundlessly in the grass at his feet.

“Or, perhaps you could do that,” William continued nervously. “It is simply that I would beg a moment to speak with you regarding your mission here. I understand that you feel you are granting me a … errr … favor or miracle, perhaps, however—”

“IT IS WRITTEN!” the angel roared, turning his attention back to Spike.

“Bloody hell,” Spike muttered again as he began limping back away from the angry archangel.

“Mr. Zadkiel, my dear angel, sir,” William tried, stepping into the advancing angel’s path. “Perhaps it is written, but is it written in _stone_?”

The angel stopped and blinked at William. William gave him what he hoped was a friendly and not too bloody smile. “It’s not a … Commandment, then, is it? No burning bushes?”

“It is written!  Once thee fulfills thy destiny, humanity is doth restored. Tis thy reward,” Zadkiel informed him in his deep, rumbling baritone. “Steppeth aside!” the angel demanded, taking a long stride forward.

“Oh, yes, that is quite decent of you, admittedly,” William began, backing up, but trying to keep himself between the messenger of God and the annoying demon who shared his body.

In the next instant a bright, glowing figure appeared between William and Zadkiel, shimmering white wings flashing with righteousness, her face a mask of determination and annoyance.

“Hey, buster!” Buffy barked at the huge angel who towered over her. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!? I hear there’s a big mountain in Nepal that might be about right for your weight class.”

The angel blinked in surprise, looking up at the glowing orb above them and then back down to Buffy.

Buffy shrugged, her wings shifting, light glimmering from the pure white feathers with the movement. “It’s not your soul, it’s William’s. You can’t eject me from it, only he can. You wanna know why?”

Zadkiel scowled at her, his bottomless, dark eyes narrowing in annoyance of his own.

“Free. Will,” Buffy stated curtly, folding her arms over her chest. “Ever heard of it?”

“What does that mean?” William whispered from behind her. Though he meant what he’d said, that she should go and leave this to them, he was beyond relieved that she had come back. Clearly, he and Spike were no match for the Angel of Freedom and Mercy, the Righteousness of God.

“It means that humans have free will. And angels can’t take that away. Unless, maybe you aren’t an angel? Zad, have you been drinking the demonic Kool-Aid? You can tell it cos it looks like blood and tastes like ashes.”

“Blasphemy!” the angel boomed at her. “Recant!”

Buffy held out her hands placatingly. “Hey, nothing personal. I’m just going by how it looks, Zad,” she replied nonchalantly; she’d been bullied, beaten, and bellowed at by bigger bads than him and, honestly, she was having a hard time being too frightened just then.

“So, you are saying he can’t force this upon me? That I may choose? Right or wrong?” William asked, ducking under Buffy’s wing to stand next to her facing the mountainous angel.

“No, he can’t force anything on you. Not if he’s really an angel. And if he’s not an angel, I’m going to beat his big, buff, super-fine ass,” Buffy declared. “It’s kinda my thing … you might even say it’s a Calling.”

The angel narrowed his eyes ominously. William made an extra effort to not look directly into them, locking his eyes on the shimmering hair that fell neglectfully over the angel’s forehead instead.

Spike stepped up on Buffy’s other side, standing near her as William was, both of them within the shelter of her raised wings. “And I’ll bloody well help ‘er. It’s kinda my thing, too, of late.”

The angel looked from William to Spike and then back again to the human, his face contorting in confusion.  “Thy will is not thine own!” the angel contended again.

“I beg to differ, my good man … err … angel, sir,” William retorted, lifting his chin defiantly.

“He’s not under the demon’s influence here,” Buffy assured Zadkiel. “He knows his own mind, his own heart … he has his own will here.”

The angel studied her severely with his fathomless eyes, clearly not convinced.

“Why would I lie?” Buffy asked him, careful to not meet those dark, bottomless eyes. “Aren’t I a Champion? A white hat? One of the good guys? The demon has never been able to fully control the human spirit here. It’s always been too strong. William has his own free will to decide. You can’t force him.”

“Thou doth not wisheth to be set free of the distemperate demon? Regaineth thy humanity?” Zadkiel questioned, looking at William incredulously.

“I do believe I indicated as much several loosened teeth ago, my dear sir,” William pointed out.

“So sayeth thee of thine own free will, unspoilt by the demon bane?” the angel boomed, his massive forehead crinkled in disbelief.

“Well, you see, there’s a girl … well, she’s more than a girl, really,” William began, flicking his eyes to Buffy briefly before looking back at the angel.  “And … we, that is to say, _I_ … I would prefer to …”

William faltered, turning to look past Buffy, considering Spike contemplatively, chewing his bloody bottom lip in thought. When was the last time _he_ had been given the choice? Allowed to assert _his_ free will? He could barely recall it. This was his chance to choose; the vampire had no say in the matter.

“Don’t be daft,” Spike growled at him, wiping blood from a gash in his forehead. “You bloody need me and you know it.”

William licked his split and swollen lips nervously, his eyes shifting to Buffy. She turned, tucking her wings next to her body, meeting his gaze and holding it, unblinking, for several long moments. “It’s your choice, William,” she whispered finally, not breaking eye contact with him. Was there a hint of fear, of trepidation, in her voice or had he just imagined it?

William swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “But … I am not enough,” he whispered. It wasn’t really a question, but Buffy took it as one.

Buffy bit her bottom lip and tears sprang to her eyes. She turned and looked at the demon on her other side, her wings curving closed slightly around both the man and the demon as she did, seemingly of their own free will. She met Spike’s yellow, desperate eyes and held them a long moment, feeling the connection to her own demon deep within her soul – it was still there, the blood claim – _mine_. She then turned back to William, blinking her eyes to hold back her emotions.

Buffy shook her head ever-so-slightly as she met his blue, imploring eyes, and he gave her a small smile as he nodded.

“I love you both … I … need you both,” Buffy stammered, her voice thick with emotion as she tried to explain. “It’s not your fault … it’s mine. I’m … the Slayer. I’m darkness and light … I … can’t change it.”

“So, you’re saying, ‘it’s not you, it’s me’?” William summarized, that soft, sad smile still curving his lips.

Buffy gave a small roll of her eyes, but shrugged, looking abashed.

William reached up and touched her cheek, gently wiping away a tear that had slipped past her control.  “This is not a revelation to me, my love. Have you not told me many times that there are no coincidences? _We_ were meant for you … not I, not him … _we_ , as one. And you were meant for us.”

William took a deep breath and turned back to the angel. “Perhaps we could come to some mutually beneficial compromise? As you have indicated this … reward is not written in stone, perhaps we may be able to modify the terms?”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Back in the bedroom, Spike snorted at the memory. The little swot had done it. With a bit of help from Buffy, William had stood up to the archangel and made his demands. He’d saved the vampire from an eternal honeymoon in hell, trapping the vampiric bloodlust, as well as its weaknesses, in the amulet instead, while leaving the demon’s consciousness, strength, and wiles within the human vessel.

In the process, William had taken his dominion back from the demon, become human again … or as human as a Slayer could be. There was still darkness, still demon inside him, but it was tempered. There was still a constant struggle for dominance – the human and the demon, the darkness and the light – but it was not the one-sided trouncing it had been. If anything, the light was just slightly brighter, stronger, more impassioned than the darkness now. He could feel the temptation to let the darkness grow at times, but then there was Buffy, and her love, above all else, kept the lure of ‘want, take, have’ firmly in check.

Even so, not everyone had been pleased with his transformation when he’d finally awoken after the battle in the Hellmouth. Talina, The Guardian, had insisted vehemently that the scythe, in this state, was an abomination, and so was he. The memory made him smile remembering how Buffy had defended him. His wife had passionately reminded Talina that Buffy, too, was an abomination, so the bitch might as well get used to it. The rules had changed, and the old Guardian had been replaced. If she didn’t want to be swept away by the tsunami that was Buffy Summers and the new Slayer world order, then Talina needed to change, too.

Spike pulled his hand away from the glittering amulet and the thirst of the vampire receded, leaving only the power thrumming through his veins. It still felt a little strange, even after a decade, but he had mostly gotten used to it. He wondered how long it would take for it to feel completely natural, before the rising sun didn’t fill him with awe – and a little trepidation – and his pounding heart didn’t surprise him when it skipped a beat at Buffy’s touch. Well, until then, he’d continue to appreciate those blessings and be grateful for them each and every day.

All of Buffy’s friends had also been disconcerted by his manner of speech, which Spike had promptly switched to be the more gentle, formal tones of his youth. Spike smirked at the memory of constantly being asked why he was speaking that way and if he was sure he was alright. Willow had even suggested trying an exorcism to get ‘the real’ Spike back. In the end, he had given it up as a bad job and let the cockney ruffian mask prevail, at least most of the time.  Buffy called him William and Spike interchangeably now, but most everyone else still stuck with Spike. Old habits, etc. 

Spike pressed a button high up on the bookcase beside the weapons’ cache and a dark, wooden panel slid out from behind the bookcase, covering the scythe, stakes, daggers and all the other tools of the trade.

Still lost in his thoughts, he looked up abruptly when the door of the bedroom opened.

“How did it go?” Buffy asked, leaning against the doorjamb.

“No worries, luv,” Spike assured her. “Snicker-snack, all the demons lost their very unfashionable heads. Smelled godawful, though. Some personal hygiene wouldn’t go amiss with that lot.”

Buffy smiled as he stepped up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her body against his. “Reckon I deserve a reward for that.”

“Ya do, huh? And just what kind of reward-y goodness did you have in mind?” Buffy teased, wrapping her arms around his neck and looking up into his eyes.

“Well …” Spike began, turning to look at the bed and then back to her, wagging his brows invitingly.

Buffy shook her head, her silky, blonde hair tumbling lusciously over her shoulders. “We have more guests arriving soon, and you’re supposed to pick up Faith and Sam at the airport, remember? They’re flying in from Cleveland at four.”

“Oh, bloody hell. That psycho Slayer tart has no bloody concept of ‘personal space,’” Spike moaned, rolling his eyes. “Maybe I missed some o’ the reeking shoe demons. I should go check, yeah?”

Buffy laughed and touched a soft kiss to his lips. “I have confidence in your ability to defend yourself from Faith. There will be more rewards for it later,” she promised, temptingly. “Whatever your heart desires.”

“You are a wicked woman,” he accused, pulling her back to capture her lips in a longer, deeper kiss.

When the kiss broke, Buffy laid her head on his chest and sighed contentedly. His arms were snug around her, his heart thudded gently beneath her ear, his breath was warm where it tickled her scalp as he touched a soft kiss to the top of her head.

“You don’t have to do it, ya know?” Spike whispered softly against her silken locks.

Buffy pulled back and looked up at him, her brow furrowing, but she knew what he meant. “I _want_ to do it. Two kids and ten years later, I think I deserve to have your legal name, don’t you, Mr. Pratt? I gave you mine back then, turnabout is fair play, dontcha think?”

Spike felt his chest swell with love, his heartbeat dance and skip lightly within, and his throat tighten with emotion. He nodded, blinking back the moisture that had suddenly sprung to his eyes. She actually wanted his name, wanted to be Mrs. William Pratt.

They’d been living as a married couple for many years, since exchanging vows and rings back in her bedroom in Sunnydale. As far as anyone knew they were legally married, but she’d always gone by Ms. Summers. When Buffy had found out she was pregnant with their first child, she’d insisted on knowing his full, human name. When Anne Joyce entered the world, it wasn’t ‘Spike Summers’ listed as the father, but William Henry Pratt.

When he’d seen what she’d put on the birth certificate, he thought his heart would explode. He’d never felt anything as powerful, as joyful, as poignant as seeing the nurse put the little name tag on their daughter’s wrist, ‘Pratt, Anne Joyce’.  That same feeling of overwhelming joy filled him now, as it had then, to know that Buffy would soon sign her name as Buffy Anne Summers-Pratt, with all the legal name-change mumbo-jumbo that went along with it.

It didn’t actually change anything between them. They’d always considered that private ceremony to be binding, if not legally, then certainly on their hearts and souls. But it still filled Spike with a renewed sense of contentment and, yes, he admitted, propriety, to have his wife take his name. William’s sweet, Victorian soul was infinitely pleased with it, though he would’ve never pressed the issue. It had been Buffy’s idea, which made it that much sweeter.

“Happy t’ be able to give you a proper ceremony with all yer friends – and my name,” he replied after a moment. “Ya deserved as much ten years ago, pet.”

“That was my choice. As I recall, I proposed to _you_ , William,” she pointed out, looking up into his bluer than blue eyes. Even after all this time, he still looked at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world, rather than the disorganized, disheveled, over-caffeinated, and permanently exhausted mother of his children.

“Ya did, at that. Married me quick-like just so you could have yer way with me. Ravage me, use my body for your pleasure,” he sniffed, as if horribly offended.

Buffy laughed. “Well, of course. Why else would I marry you?” she teased. “Still why I keep you around. Just renewing our vows tomorrow to remind you of your obligations in that department.”

“Are ya, then? Well, perfectly happy to fulfill my _obligation_ right now,” Spike purred in a sexy rumble from deep in his chest. He tightened his hold around her, capturing her lips in another passionate kiss, which she returned fervently. Spike started walking backwards, drawing her with him toward the bed, but Buffy stopped him, pulling back from his embrace, breaking the kiss.

“ _Our_ friends,” she pointed out a bit breathlessly, backing away, “will be arriving soon.”

“They’ll need t’ get their own vixen t’ ravage them,” he quipped, stalking back toward her. “Not sharing mine.”

Buffy put a hand out on his chest to stop his advance. “Spike, remember Sam and Faith? Airport?”

Spike sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. “Why was Psycho Slayer invited again?”

“For old times’ sake? She did save your life … and we do have to work with her,” she pointed out, shrugging. “Plus, she’s sort of dating Angel now, and you specifically wanted him here. Which, I say again, could be the worst idea you’ve ever had. And that’s saying a _lot_.”

“Oh, it’s a bloody delicious idea,” Spike assured her, smirking. “Plus, with a house full o’ Slayers, I reckon there’s a good chance of him turning to dust ‘fore it’s over.”

Before Buffy could reply, they were interrupted by a voice coming from the stairs, a few feet away. “Mommy! Andrew’s having a meltdown cos he says our mayo is out of date and we don’t have any rubbed sage, and skim milk is the work of the devil!”

Buffy and Spike both turned toward their daughter, a girl of about eight who looked utterly exasperated as she walked up to the open doorway to their room. Her normally happy countenance had been replaced with a scowl, her green eyes narrowed in annoyance as she delivered the message. “He’s such a fusspot!”

“Fusspot, is it? Where did ya hear that, then?” Spike wondered, looking down at her.

Her long, wavy, brunette hair flowed around her shoulders like a waterfall as she turned and waved a hand toward the stairs where she’d just come from and, presumably, the kitchen beyond. “That’s what Uncle Giles called him. He said some other things too…”

“Which you probably don’t need to repeat,” Buffy advised her wisely. “Tell Andrew to write down what he needs, and your dad can pick it up on the way back from the airport.”

“Okaaay,” the girl sighed dramatically, drama having become her most recent superpower. She turned then, her thick hair flying out and whipping around her head, before heading back toward the stairs.

“And, Annie – be nice! You never want to piss off the cook!” Buffy called after her as she and Spike started out of the room. “We have to eat that food later!”

“Bloody hell,” Spike moaned. “Go to the grocery _and_ deal with Angel’s tart in one trip? Askin’ a lot of a bloke, you are.”

“I believe in you,” Buffy assured him, smiling indulgently. Just then, a slim boy of about six with a cottontop of unruly curls appeared at the top of the stairs. He walked down the hall towards them, his nose buried in a book, his feet apparently guided by sonar or something equally mysterious.

Seeing him gave Buffy an idea. “Tell you what, take William with you. He can distract her, keep the tart out of your personal space.”

The boy looked up from the book and stopped, hearing his name, his bright, blue eyes interested as he looked from Buffy to Spike. “Where are we going?”

“Your dad’s going to the airport to pick up Aunt Faith and Aunt Sam,” Buffy told him, reaching a hand out to ruffle his soft curls, disheveling them even more. “Do you want to go?”

He scowled, screwing up his adorable face, and backed up out of her reach, trying to smooth his hair down, with limited success. “Can we go in the Batmobile?” he asked hopefully, looking up at Spike.

“There’s no car seat in the DeSoto,” Buffy pointed out.

“But, the other day we went to McDon—” The rest of William’s words were muffled when Spike clamped a hand over the boy’s mouth, giving Buffy an innocent smile.

“Best be on our way, then. Wouldn’t want to leave guests waitin’ at the curb,” Spike suggested quickly, turning the boy and marching him back down the hallway away from Buffy and her inquiring look.

“Use the damn car seat!” she called after them, frowning. “And no stopping at McDonald’s!”

“No worries!” Spike replied, waving a dismissive hand in the air but not turning around as he and William headed for the garage.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Parked at the curbside passenger pickup at the airport, Spike sighed as he unbuckled William from the car seat in the back of the DeSoto. It was just wrong to have a car seat in Black Betty. It was bad enough that the kids had renamed her to be the Batmobile, but he could live with that. Car seats in the Batmobile were just wrong on so many levels. But he’d done it – gotten it out of ‘the family car’ and put it in his – mostly to keep Buffy from going off the deep end and giving him another lecture about safety in the twenty-first century.

With William out of his confines, the two blonds waited next to the car for their guests to emerge from the airport. Spike leaned back against the rear quarter panel, tucking his thumbs over his belt buckle, splaying his fingers out over his groin, and casually crossing his feet.  William watched his father carefully and, leaning up right next to him, mimicked Spike’s pose almost perfectly.

Spike could hear women comment on how cute the boy was as they passed – from grandmothers all the way down to tweens. He thought one or two might come up and pinch the boy’s cheeks, but apparently their hurry to get wherever they were headed stopped them.

William objected to being called ‘cute’ by anyone – primarily because he’d heard Spike object when Buffy called him cute. Spike had to smile now, watching as his son tried to effect a serious scowl to deter the remarks of the passersby, unaware that to lasses of all ages, that just ratcheted up the cuteness factor on a six year old.

“Need t’ go for aloof,” Spike suggested. “Like ya can’t hear ‘em and, even if you could, you don’t bloody care. See, like this…” Spike pursed his lips and sucked his cheeks in, lifting his chin and looking off into the distance, acting as if no one else existed.

William nodded, trying to copy his father, pushing his lips out until they looked like the bill of a duck, and lifting his chin in the air, doing his best to be aloof.

“Brilliant,” Spike assured him, swallowing back a laugh. Luckily, he was saved from having to stifle it too long by the arrival of their guests.

“Oh, my God! Billy! You get cuter every time I see you!” Sam exclaimed.

“It’s _William_!” he corrected her, shooting Spike a disgusted look. He’d firmly denounced ‘Billy’ as a nickname a couple of months ago. He’d announced at breakfast one day that he was five and a half, and ‘Billy’ was a baby name, and that had been that.

Spike shrugged as he stood back up from his position resting against the car. “It’s a curse, mate. Just have to bear it, I reckon.”

“Oh, sorry, William!” Sam dropped her bag and scooped the boy up into a bear hug. “You’ve gotten so big! You’re growing like a dandelion! And you have the cottony fluff to match!” she teased him, using one hand to ruffle his blond curls, making the boy sigh heavily in utter exasperation.

“Oh, my God, Spike! You get cuter every time I see you,” Faith mocked, flinging her arms around Spike and hugging him.

“Do a bloke a favor, and get yer hands off my arse,” Spike requested dryly, not returning the hug.

“Oh, but it’s so cute!” Faith joked, giving the round globes of his backside a firm squeeze. “And, since I saved it, I think I should get at least a little feel.”

“Been ten bloody years. When, do ya reckon that debt will be paid, then?”

“Oh, I dunno … maybe when it starts sagging,” she suggested with a wink.

“The Cro-Magnon man carried Buffy out. Don’t see him ‘round here grabbing her arse,” Spike pointed out, pushing Faith back out of his ‘personal space’ firmly but gently.

Faith laughed, reluctantly stepping back and releasing him, her brown eyes alight with impish mischief, as always. “Well, that’s not too hard to figure out, since B called him a ‘mother fucker’ and knocked him out cold in front of his men for leaving you behind. Pretty sure even Finn got that message.”

“So, yer saying if I knock you on your arse in front of the girls, you’d give it a bloody rest?”

“Well, you could _try,”_ Faith taunted, her brown eyes glittering playfully _._ “Anyway, as the General of the Slayer Army, I am technically your boss, so it’s totally in my rights to evaluate your fitness level. Maybe we could check your upper body strength and cardio next. Whaddya say, big guy?” she asked, wagging her brows suggestively.

“Did ya not attend that sexual harassment seminar of Rupert’s?” Spike wondered, arching a brow at her.

“Oh, yeah – three times – didn’t really stick,” Faith said, waving a hand dismissively. 

Spike sighed and rolled his eyes.

Faith shrugged, then turned her attention to William, who Sam had set back down on his feet. “Look how big the pipsqueak is getting! Didn’t I see you on the cover of GQ last month? Are you twenty-one now?” she joked, kneeling down to give him a hug.

“Noooo. I’m five and five-sixths. I’ll be six on August twentieth,” he informed her seriously, accepting and returning her hug much more graciously than his father. Of course, she wasn’t squeezing his ass, so that helped.

“Oh, right. I lose count. Good thing you’re a whiz with math and counting and stuff!” Faith teased, still kneeling down but releasing him from her embrace. “I brought you a surprise for your birthday, just in case I don’t get back by then.”

“What is it?” the boy asked excitedly, his blue eyes dancing in anticipation, his curls bouncing around his face much like the dandelion fluff Sam likened it to.

“It’s a surprise! If I told you, it would ruin the surprise. You do know the meaning of that word, right?” Faith asked, furrowing her brows in mock sternness as she looked at him.

William rolled his eyes and ‘tsked’ his tongue. “Of course I do! _I’m five and five-sixths,”_ he informed her again, as if she’d forgotten already.

Faith laughed and looked up at Spike. “Think he gets the eye-roll from B, but the attitude is all you, dude. And who the fu...dge taught him college-level fractions?”

Spike smirked down at her, but before he could reply, Sam stepped between Faith and Spike, and opened her arms invitingly.

“How’s my favorite Slayer?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck in a friendly, G-rated hug.

Spike returned it, giving the tall brunette a hard squeeze around the middle before releasing her. “I’m bloody brilliant. And how’s my favorite Watcher, then?”

Sam smiled, tucking a lock of her long, brown hair behind one ear. “I’m so good it’s scary,” she gushed.

Spike quirked a brow at her. “So, Percy’s doing right by ya, then? Don’t need me t’ defend yer honor?”

“ _Wesley_ is doing very right by me, yes,” Sam assured him. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m no damsel in distress.”

“Bit of a shame, that,” Spike replied. “A bloke likes t’ feel needed now and again.”

“Oh, sorry … I’ll try to trip and fall down so you can help me up,” Sam offered.

“’Preciate that, luv. Makes me feel all manly.”

“I’m a thousand percent sure that has never been a problem for you, Spike,” Sam pointed out, giving his physique a quick, appreciative scan.

Spike curled his tongue against his teeth, tucking his thumbs back over his belt buckle, pleased with the compliment. He’d had to start working for his hot, tight little body since that fateful day in the Hellmouth. It was bloody annoying at a times. Being a Slayer gave him power and strength and an insatiable appetite, but didn’t automatically keep his six-pack from becoming a one-pack.

He looked over at William and Faith. His son was trying to charm the surprise gift out of the General of the Slayer Army with a pout that rivaled Buffy’s best, and sad, puppy-dog eyes that Spike couldn’t have done any better. Spike’s annoyance with having to spend time in the gym and running on the beach faded immediately – he would make that sacrifice and a million more for the rewards it had wrought him.

An aging body was a small price to pay for all that he’d gained that day in the Hellmouth. A beautiful, bright daughter. A cute … err, I mean handsome, charming son. Acceptance, and even friendship, from Buffy’s friends. A real life, out in the light, in the sunshine, with the woman he loved, with a family. The chance to give Buffy a small taste of the ‘normal’ life she’d dreamed of for so long.  A chance to be the man she truly deserved. It was, in truth, everything he’d ever wanted to be, everything he’d always wanted to give her.

He wasn’t a monster; he was a man. A good man. Her man.

“So, where is the dandy?” Spike wondered after a moment, lifting his eyes from William and shifting his attention back to Sam. “Hasn’t gotten in over his head again, has he? Hope he’s not needing Red to come bail him outta some magical jam, cos she’s about to bloody pop.”

“No, since she saved his ass with Vail and the Black Thorn, he’s mostly been staying in the shallow end of the wizarding pool. He’s actually down in San Diego on a Potential Slayer recruitment mission. He’s gonna drive up later tonight or early tomorrow and pick up Angel on the way,” Sam explained.

“Oh, that’s gonna be scrumptious,” Spike beamed, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Not invitin’ Captain Forehead in. Can’t wait to see his gaskets blow out his bloody ears standing on the doorstep like a brush salesman, begging t’ speak to the lady of the house.”

Sam laughed and picked up her suitcase, walking around to the back of the car for Spike to open the trunk. “Someday you’re gonna have to tell me the whole story about you and Angel.”

“Reckon you’ve heard most of it from Percy and the arse-inspector there,” Spike pointed out as he opened the trunk. “Maybe even a bit from the magnificent poof, eh?”

“Yeah, but I’m willing to bet that your side of it is completely different and probably a lot more colorful,” Sam suggested, setting her bag into the trunk.

“All ya need to know is: he’s a wanker and I’m a bloody hero, and he’s so green I reckon he farts shamrocks,” Spike replied, picking up Faith’s bag and tossing it into the trunk as well.

“See?” Sam laughed. “More colorful already!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait! Is this still a P4S fic? Where’s the bone-crushing angst? Enjoy the break. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them!! 
> 
> Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help -- any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!


	86. The World is Doomed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More friends have arrived for the weekend of celebration for Buffy and Spike’s vow-renewal ceremony.

_**Easter Egg:**_ Some of you may recognize the picture of young William in the banner, it is Sullivan Marsters, James’s son. If you don’t know him, you should check out his music![ Sullivan's Youtube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOS7OGpDQK0ijKh_OKYnhw)

  
This is another of my very favorite banners! Thank you, PaganBaby!!

* * *

 

 

“Reckon you know the way, go on in,” Spike invited Sam and Faith to go ahead as he struggled to get William out of the car seat. “I’ll take yer bags up – same rooms as before.”

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Sam offered, watching him wrestle with the contraption’s straps through the window. “Demonic car seats can be tricky. Might take the brains of a Watcher instead of the brute force of a Slayer.”

“Bloody hilarious, you are,” Spike muttered, finally getting his son free of the hideous invention.

“Take the grub t’ Andrew before he starts whining about the bloody flour not being freshly ground in a water-driven gristmill or some such rot,” he instructed William, handing him two grocery bags filled with items that Andrew had put on a list for them to pick up.

William’s arms dropped down straight by his sides with the weight of the bags and he nearly dropped them.

“Here, let me help,” Sam offered coming around the car to take the bags from the boy, Faith having already headed for the door leading into the house from the garage.

“Thanks,” William said, frowning and grabbing another bag from the floorboard that Spike had missed. “I’ll get this one.”

Spike snagged it out of his son’s hand and held it behind his back. “Not fer Andrew,” he explained.

William’s brows went up. “Who’s it for?”

“Yer mum. Go on now … into the house with ya,” Spike instructed, tilting his head toward the door that Faith had disappeared through.

“I can take it to Mommy,” William offered, trying to reach around Spike for the bag.

“Not for you to give her, for me to. Run along then,” Spike urged him again.

William sighed and shook his head. “Old people are so weird,” he muttered as he headed around the car toward the door.

Sam quirked a brow at Spike, smiling. “I thought Buffy was more of a chocolate girl. That’s a bottle of honey.”

Spike sniffed and lifted his chin. “Branching out,” he informed her.

Sam laughed and turned to follow William and Faith into the house. “Enjoy!” she called back.

“Intend to, luv.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Yo, B! How’s it hangin’, girlfriend?” Faith greeted her fellow Slayer in the kitchen, where Buffy was trying to assure Andrew that Spike would be here with the things the cook needed soon.

“See! They’re here!” Buffy said, waving a hand at Faith.

“Thank goodness! I just cannot work in these primitive conditions!” Andrew insisted, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow and sighing dramatically.

Buffy looked around her large, modern kitchen, which featured a myriad of bright, shiny, stainless-steel appliances. Buffy had no idea what one or two of them were even for. “Andrew, you have every midnight infomercial doodad and kitchen contraption they’ve ever invented in here! Stop being such a … a fusspot!”

“You wouldn’t say that to Gordon Ramsay,” Andrew huffed, picking up the framed picture of the British TV chef off the counter near the stove and holding it up to Buffy.

“Whoever that is, I’m pretty sure he’s not as big a fusspot as you are!” Buffy retorted.

Andrew rolled his eyes, but then brightened when Sam came in and set the bags down on the marble countertop.

“Special delivery,” Sam announced before turning to Buffy and pulling her into a tight hug. “How you doin’? All ready for the big day?”

Buffy returned the hug and sighed loudly. “That depends on if Andrew can manage to get everyone fed or not. We may be having take-out pizza and hot wings for the reception.”

“I don’t think anyone is coming for the food, Buffy,” Sam assured her, pulling back and giving her friend a reassuring smile.

Buffy nodded, rolling her eyes. “I know, it’s just … I don’t know why I thought having Andrew do this was a good idea.”

“Because he makes all of Spike’s favorite foods?” Sam suggested with a wry smile.

Buffy snorted and rolled her eyes. “The things I put up with for that man … totally worth it, of course!”

Sam laughed and started to reply, but she was interrupted by William tugging on Buffy’s shirt. “Mommy?”

“What is it, baby?” Buffy asked, looking down at him.

“You’re a Slayer, right?”

“You know I am, honey, why?” Buffy wondered, brows furrowing in confusion.

“Then how come Aunt Faith doesn’t check your bottom like she—” he began but was interrupted by Faith grabbing his hand and pulling him away from his mother.

“Hey, kiddo! How about that surprise now? Are you ready for it?” Faith asked eagerly.

William’s cornflower-blue eyes lit up, and he nodded excitedly, forgetting his question to his mom.

Buffy turned a perturbed look on Faith, but the dark Slayer just shrugged, flashing Buffy a brilliant smile as she led William out of the kitchen to go find what Spike had done with her bag.

Buffy turned back to Sam, who gave her friend a sympathetic shrug and roll of the eyes. “You know Faith,” the Watcher sighed.

“Unfortunately,” Buffy groaned, but waved it off. It was just Faith, after all, she’d never change. “So, how are things in Cleveland?” Buffy asked Sam as she retrieved a Coke from the refrigerator and offered it to her.

“Pretty quiet,” Sam reported, taking the drink. “Rona and her squad seem to have it under control. That’s not really much of a Hellmouth, as Hellmouths go, but they get a few vamps and other demons wandering in.”

“I guess L.A. is still the big ground-zero hotspot for demon raves,” Buffy surmised, opening a Coke of her own and motioning for Sam to have a seat at the breakfast nook. Andrew was starting to huff out impatient breaths and scurry around them muttering about expecting him to finish preparing this meal with people taking up valuable space in ‘his’ kitchen.  

“Well, having a rip in space and time that leads to a demonic hell dimension is kinda like a big disco ball calling all demons to the dance,” Sam agreed. “I mean, between Willow, Tara, and Wes, they got the hole that the Senior Partner’s ripped open mostly closed, but small things still slip in once in a while. And the energy it projects is … well … like a red carpet all rolled out welcoming every demonic thing to join the all-you-can-eat buffet around there.

“Wes has been talking to Dawn lately about ideas on how to close that rip fully and permanently, but so far they haven’t been able to completely counter the magic the Senior Partners used to open it – not with magic or physics,” Sam admitted.

“They still have that whole area around the Hyperion where the portal is walled off, right?” Buffy asked as she sat down across from the Watcher, well out of Andrew’s way.

Sam nodded, taking a drink of her Coke. “Which keeps most people away, but it just makes it that much more inviting to thrill seekers and dumb kids … and, honestly, lots of homeless people. We even put up radiation signs on the walls, but that doesn’t even deter them.

“Angel and his team do their best to keep it all under control,” Sam continued. “But they can’t handle it all, not even with Illyria. We usually have at least two or three squads of Slayers down there helping them.”

Buffy sighed. “I wonder if Angel still thinks it was worth us helping him take down all those Black Thorn guys? I’m having my doubts.”

Sam shrugged. “He swears it would’ve been worse if we hadn’t. Like … full-blown apocalyptic.”

Buffy sighed again and shrugged. “At least when Spike and I stop an apocalypse, we stop it. Angel’s brilliant plan just seems to be prolonging it … dragging it out like a bad movie with no end in sight … and the popcorn and Jujubes are all gone.”

“Well, not everyone’s as … singled-minded and … ummm … _unrestrained_ as you and Spike,” Sam admitted, her lips curving into a small smile. “You two never do anything by half-measures. You’re like a perfect storm of absolute destruction when you set your minds to something.”

Buffy frowned unhappily. “We are not! We’re entirely un-stormy, it hardly even rains here! And, we have a complete lack of destruction. Note this house – still standing, nine years here and not even a crack in the foundation!”

Sam arched a skeptical brow at the senior Slayer.  “So, I guess that big hole in the ground where Sunnydale used to be is just a completely natural phenomenon, not a town that you two totally destroyed.”

“That town deserved it,” Buffy defended with a pout. “What idiot builds a town on top of a Hellmouth, anyway?”

Sam’s smile widened. “I rest my case.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

After delivering Faith’s and Sam’s bags to their rooms, Spike had dropped off the little bear-shaped squeeze bottle of honey in the master bedroom for use later during his ‘reward’. He could still get a whiff of reeking demon blood now and then, so he took his time cleaning up, showering, shaving and changing into clean clothes before dinner.  As Spike headed down the hallway, he could hear lots of people talking down on the first floor and the clatter of silverware on dishes. Apparently, their other guests had arrived while he’d been gone, and Andrew had somehow managed to get the evening meal prepared, despite late arriving spices and devil’s milk.

Spike stopped near the top of the stairs where the landing opened up, giving a panoramic view of a large portion of the first floor below. Their Spanish-style home sat up on a cliff, looking out over the Pacific Ocean, a couple of hours north of L.A. With the longer days of summer upon them, rays from the setting sun were just beginning to shine in through the windows, which stretched to the full height of the multi-level house. The open floorplan and tall, cathedral ceilings at the back of the house allowed sweeping views of the blue skies, white beach, and sparkling ocean, giving the illusion of being outside.

There was a wide terrace at the back of the house, with a swimming pool and hot tub, and a gently winding staircase ran down from it to the semi-private beach below. Several sets of French doors that led to the terrace were standing open now, letting the fresh breeze off the ocean waft in, carrying the conversations below up the stairs to him in snippets. Along with the voices came the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread mingled with Italian spices – garlic and oregano chief among them – from Andrew’s meal.

Spike reflected that Buffy’s house in Sunnydale could’ve fit into this one three or four times, at least. He hadn’t understood her desire for such a large house when they’d looked at it several years ago when she was pregnant with Annie, but he did soon afterwards. She wanted to be the anchor, not the flagship, for the Slayer Army.

Although it was not the main base of operations, it was a place where Slayers, Potentials, Watchers, and friends could come to rest, to recover, to decompress, to consult, to strategize, to think. She would be here for them, to help in any way she could, but she rarely traveled far from home to follow her Calling. She was still the Slayer – yes, _THE Slayer_ , as far as Spike was concerned – and her need to slay, to fight the evil things of the world remained. But, as far as apocalypses went, those, she said, were for young people without children. She trusted that the Slayers of today could handle whatever came – and, thus far, they had done so brilliantly. If any demons got too close to home, then she and/or Spike would take care of it, like the mall demons that morning. She’d faced her share of death and then some, now it was her turn to just be a mom, a wife, and a friend, at least most of the time.

Thankfully, with sound investments by Anya of the money Buffy and Spike had received from the Army in reward for the Suvolte eradication and then later for the closing of the Hellmouth, affording what could easily be called a ‘mansion’ right on the beach hadn’t been a problem.

Anya, who always had a knack for investing and making money, had also done well with the funds the Watchers Council had left in their coffers after Caleb blew them to bits. The ex-demon had discovered a small fortune spread across banks worldwide owned by the Watchers Council, from Abu Dhabi to Switzerland to Zimbabwe. In addition to that, the Council had substantial insurance policies on the building and on the lives of all the Watchers who had perished.

But all that was just a drop in the bucket.

During the excavation and clean-up of the destroyed headquarters building, a vault had been found deep below ground in a bomb-proof shelter. It had taken several months and a few mystics, witches, prophets, oracles, and a world-renowned safe-cracker to get into the thing – but oh, was it worth it! Even Scrooge McDuck would’ve been flabbergasted by the treasures it held; he could’ve filled an Olympic sized swimming pool with the riches they’d found and still had some left over! Not just enough glittering gold and silver – bars and bullion – for a dozen king’s ransoms, but ancient, mystical and religious artifacts dating back thousands of years resided in the large vault.

Buffy thought Anya was going to have multiple orgasms right on the spot just from the sight of it all.  She may have – there was plenty of drool slipping from her lips, her eyes had gone glassy and her breathing erratic the moment the ex-demon had stepped into the vault. Mrs. Harris had certainly spent enough time in there ‘cataloging’ it all. Usually with Xander. Do bodily fluids tarnish the luster of gold? Buffy didn’t want to know.

So, the end result was that Giles was able to provide not only state-of-the-art weaponry and training, but also decent salaries to Slayers now, which meant both Buffy and Spike received paychecks.

Spike leaned his forearms on the banister and let his eyes wander over the scattered, white linen-covered tables that had been set up in the living room below. The furniture that normally filled the space – comfortable, overstuffed couches and chairs – had been slid against the walls to make room for several round dining tables. The children’s table was set strategically in the center, allowing easy intervention on the part of the parents in case of food fights, catastrophic spills, or other semi-apocalyptic ruckuses.

William and Annie were both at that table, of course. Annie sat next to her BFF, Sarah, who was about a year older, Anya and Xander’s eldest child. The two girls were practically inseparable. If they weren’t together at home or school or at gymnastics or dance class, they were talking on the phone or chatting on their computers.  Young William sat on the other side of Sarah, and next to him was his bestie, Josh, Sarah’s younger brother. The boys were a little less intense with their friendship, mostly enjoying playing video games and riding their bikes, but Spike suspected that would change as they grew older and found more mischief to get into.

The ‘odd man out’, so to speak, was a fiery redheaded boy, Daniel, who was about three years younger than William and Josh, and, therefore, not worthy of much notice by the older boys, unless they were trying to get him to eat worms, dig tunnels to China or otherwise get him into trouble. To be fair, it didn’t take much encouragement to lead Daniel astray.

Daniel was Willow and Tara’s son. Well, technically, Tara and Daniel ‘Oz’ Osbourne were his biological parents, but for reasons beyond Oz’s control – being a werewolf –  he couldn’t be around all the time. He mostly stayed on his boat, alone, sailing the world, trying to find a cure for his condition. He came back to visit as often as he could – always for birthdays and holidays, more often if he could manage it. But, during the week around the full moon he always made sure he was out in the middle of the ocean, far away from anyone or anything he might hurt. Although the werewolf had found several useful techniques for managing his condition during his travels – herbal medicines, meditation, and magical charms – none were foolproof, and he wouldn’t risk hurting anyone for any reason, especially not his family or friends.

Spike’s eyes tracked over to where Tara and Willow sat at the same table with Buffy. Willow was expecting now – another little pup to add to the pack. Well, they weren’t literally ‘pups’; lycanthropy was not passed on from father to child – they’d checked on that before starting their family. Willow looked like she might burst at any moment to Spike, but he’d been assured that was not the case, that she still had a full month to go before Daniel would have a little brother to terrorize. Oz sat next to her, his hand resting on the witch’s bulging stomach as if waiting to feel a kick.  Apparently, Willow had not kicked the father of their children in the kidney’s too hard, he seemed uninjured and completely enthralled and excited by the new life they had created.

As Spike watched, little Daniel climbed awkwardly down out of his chair and ran, tottering slightly – isn’t that the only way three-year-old’s travel? – over to his parents. Tara scooped him up onto her lap, smiling and cooing to him as he reached out for Oz. The werewolf pulled the toddler onto his knee, bouncing him lightly up and down as Tara grabbed a napkin, dipped it in a glass of water, and began scrubbing the child’s hands, which were apparently thoroughly coated with a large portion of his meal.

Spike smiled as he watched them. It was an unusual family, but it worked. Daniel, despite his ginger temperament and propensity for eating worms, was a happy child, and he was adored, and perhaps a little spoiled, by all three of his doting parents.

Spike let his eyes scan over to the other side of Buffy where Dawn and her newest beau – Spike thought his name was Nick – or Dick … maybe it was Prick – sat. Spike didn’t like the boy. But then, Spike hadn’t liked any of the young men Dawn had brought home over the last ten years. Not the ones from high school, not the ones from college, not the ones from graduate school, and not this one who was in her doctoral program. Wankers, the lot of them. None were even remotely good enough for Dawn.

At the table on the other side of the children’s table, Faith, somewhat predictably, had taken a seat next to Xander and appeared to be garnering all of his attention. Anya was distracted talking to Sam on her other side, not seeing her husband’s apparent enthrallment with the Slayer. Spike thought it wouldn’t be long before the ex-demon noticed Faith, and her perpetually inappropriate advances on every male in sight, and broke that shit up. Faith may be ‘sort of dating’ Angel, but Spike got the idea that wasn’t anything Faith took too seriously. He smiled to himself in anticipation of Mrs. Harris’ tirade. Anya may not be a Slayer, but he doubted even Faith could match her sharp-tongued barbs, brutal honesty, and scathing wit.

The other guests currently enjoying Andrew’s culinary talents included Clement and his lady-friend, Simona, an incredibly nice, and incredibly ugly, Loose-Skinned Demon. If Clem was a zero on a ten-point scale of beauty, then Simona was a negative seventy – in other words, she was way out of Clem’s league. Spike wasn’t sure how his friend had managed to score such a dreadfully sagging, wrinkly girlfriend, but Clem was basking in the glory of his good fortune.

Rounding out the group were a few other Slayers, ones that Buffy had grown close to over the years, like Amanda, Kennedy, Soledad, and Vi.  Buffy and Faith had both been surprised by how many of the original volunteer Slayers had stayed true to their Calling after all this time. Buffy admitted to Spike more than once that if she’d been given a choice, there was no way she would have remained a Slayer for more than two seconds after meeting her first vampire.

“But you were alone, pet,” Spike had pointed out. “These Slayers now, they’ve got a bloody Army … friends, comrades in arms, someone t’ braid their hair and argue over who Sookie should choose – Eric or that bloody knob, Bill. You gave them that. You gave them choice, and I reckon that makes all the difference, yeah?”

Buffy just shrugged when anyone pointed out how she changed the lives of Slayers. “It’s what any sane person would’ve done,” she’d always insisted, brushing it off.

Refocusing on the group below, Spike watched as the tux-clad Tobias glided smoothly from table to table, refilling drinks, removing empty plates, mopping up spilled fruit punch at the kid’s table, and generally keeping everyone properly seen to. The teal-skinned, aquatic demon still worked as the headwaiter at the Venomous Unicorn, but moonlighted now and then for Spike and Buffy, and for large Slayer, Potential or Watcher meetings that were held in the area.  Buffy had suggested it as a way to start teaching the new Slayers and Watchers the shades of grey that so many of them had a hard time embracing when they first came to this life.

A year or so ago, Spike had rented a couple of Batman movies and watched them with Tobias and his cousin, the soap-demon, Roberta. The prim and proper headwaiter now at least understood, and would answer to, the moniker ‘Alfred’, although Spike was pretty sure he didn’t like it one little bit. Roberta, thankfully, never minded him calling her ‘Ariel’.

“If you are contemplating escape, I do believe you’ve left it a little late,” Giles remarked, walking up to Spike from down the hall.

Spike turned his head sharply to look at the Watcher, slightly startled. So lost was he in his thoughts, he hadn’t heard Giles come out of his room or walk up to him. After a moment, Spike nodded, smirking, as what the man had said registered with him.

“Reckon about fifteen bloody years too late,” he agreed, turning his eyes back to the group downstairs, his gaze automatically drawn to Buffy.

Giles stepped up next to him and leaned his elbows on the railing, mimicking Spike, looking down at the group below.  “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen her quite so happy,” the Watcher admitted as Buffy laughed brightly at something Dawn’s latest beau said.

Spike smiled and took a deep, contented breath, letting it out slowly. “Can’t ever remember being this happy m’self.”

“It’s been a rather long and winding road,” Giles observed, still looking down at the gathered friends and family.

“Beatles songs now, is it?” Spike taunted. “Well, here’s one for ya, ‘All you need is love.’ You said it wouldn’t be enough. Reckon you were wrong.”

“In point of fact, I never said that, I simply _intimated_ that it _might not_ be enough,” Giles corrected. “Buffy clearly saw something in you that I did not.”

Spike snorted softly. “Understatement of the bloody decade, that,” he grumbled, but then his voice softened when he added, “She believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself.” Spike blinked rapidly, determined to not let his emotions spill from his eyes. Wasn’t bloody manly. “Could never repay her for that, but I’ll try for the rest o’ my days.”

“She’s always been one to follow her intuition, regardless of what the rest of us thought or said or did,” Giles observed.  “Her intuition is quite good, you know? The actions she takes are generally correct.”

“Are they, then?” Spike questioned, a little surprised, turning to look at the older man. “I still recall you using the threat of a pointy stick to drive home a different opinion o’ me.”

Giles removed his glasses and began polishing them, still gazing out, now unseeing, over the sea of people below. “Indeed, well, I felt it was needed then. That was quite a long time ago.”

“And now?” Spike asked, still looking at the Watcher. “Plannin’ on another ‘if you hurt her’ speech on the eve of renewing our vows?”

Giles replaced his glasses and looked back at Spike. “No, actually. Things are different now, aren’t they?”

“Because my heart beats and I’ve got tan lines?” Spike wondered, feeling more than a little affronted.

“To my eye, yes, I believe that makes an incredible difference,” Giles acknowledged. “And, while I’m certain that Buffy would not admit it, I cannot believe that you don’t believe it yourself. Could you have offered her this life as a vampire?” he asked, waving a hand out to encompass everything from the late day sunlight glittering in through the windows to the laughing children below.

Spike pursed his lips and looked away, watching as the rays of the sun crept slowly up the stairs towards him as the sun inched toward the far horizon. “Loved her just as much then as now,” he pointed out gravely, his voice a rough, low rasp.

“Yes, looking back, I’m certain that you did,” Giles acknowledged. “But, that doesn’t change the fact that you could not have given her this life as a vampire. I’ve often thought that your love for her, and hers for you, is why you are here now with your tan lines and a beating heart, rather than dust at the bottom of that pit previously known as Sunnydale.”

Spike arched an inquiring brow at the Watcher. “Thought you said it was that Shanshu bugaboo that Angel was on about.”

Giles waved a dismissive hand. “I simply agreed with him because it seemed to be the most painful, demoralizing thing for him to hear at the time.”

Spike barked out a laugh. “That’s bloody brilliant!”

“I have my moments,” Giles agreed, giving Spike a conspiratorial grin.

“So, if not that, then … what? Why am I a bloody Slayer? How do you figure the darkest bits of the vampire got outta me and into the scythe?” Spike asked. “Yer saying it was … _love_? ‘Cos that big, Schwarzenegger-wannabe angel kept bellowing, ‘it is written,’ as he tried t’ haul the demon outta me.”

Giles shrugged one shoulder and looked back down at Buffy. “Of course, anything is possible. But what was written as the Shanshu is not that the vampire be transformed into a Slayer. Perhaps that was the original plan, to grant you that prophecy, but from my research on the subject, that is clearly not what was bestowed upon you.

“Love can be quite powerful. ‘But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love,’” Giles quoted First Corinthians. “Combine that love with mystical forces of the scythe and the amulet and this so-called angel you believe visited you, and then add in Buffy’s iron will and, honestly, the possibilities are limitless,” the Watcher suggested. “From the start, Buffy was special, willful and determined to do things her own way. She simply refused to adhere to the rules. She made her own, and she continues to do so.”

Spike snorted softly. “Can’t bloody argue with that,” he muttered.

“You go against all the rules, Spike. A vampire who truly falls in love with a Slayer, who fights to get his soul back, who is then turned into a Slayer himself. A male, at that, certainly unprecedented. And no teenager, even just counting your human years.

“Which previously hard-and-fast rules were _not_ broken in your transformation?” the Watcher wondered.

“I’m a bloody rebel,” Spike drawled, smirking.

Giles snorted a short laugh. “Indeed. Well, whatever happened in the Hellmouth, whatever magics combined, or angelic miracles were bestowed, all the rules were broken, rewritten, perhaps,” Giles continued.  “Turning prophecies on their heads is Buffy’s modus operandi to a ‘T’. I don’t believe she could be truly happy with someone who didn’t break all the rules; with a rebel, as it were. And I know she is happy with you.”

This admission from Giles was one that Spike had never previously heard, at least not in so many words. While their relationship had improved considerably over the years, even friendly and filled with mutual respect, Giles had never actually given Spike the satisfaction of admitting aloud that the former vampire was deserving of Buffy’s love or that he approved of their union. Maybe it was their impending re-wedding, as Buffy called it, that had inspired this sudden declaration from the Watcher. Spike wasn’t sure, but a little niggling voice in the back of his mind made him a bit wary.

Spike dug in the pocket of his jeans and found a penny. He dropped it over the balcony and watched it fall to the floor below and bounce a few times before rolling beneath a chair.

“What was that for?” Giles wondered, looking back up from the path of the coin to Spike.

Spike shrugged. “Just wanted t’ make sure it wasn’t topsy-turvy day. If the bloody penny had floated up, this conversation mighta made more sense.”

Giles rolled his eyes and sighed. “Well, be that as it may. Perhaps it is time to let bygones be bygones.

“Buffy told me once that you knew her pain and you helped her bear it, that you fit into the missing cracks of each other’s souls … and you made her laugh,” the Watcher revealed. “Honestly, I dismissed it as a young woman’s idealistic, romantic notion.”

“And now?” Spike prompted when the Watcher paused long enough for Spike to think he was going to leave it at that.

Giles took a deep breath and let it out slowly, before admitting, “Of course, I was mistaken. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen her life evolve with you into something I doubt any previous Slayer has ever achieved. I’ve seen her pain fade, her tears dry, the weight on her shoulders lift. I’ve seen joy fill her heart, her happiness blossom, her life evolve into something more than I could’ve ever hoped for her.”

“Is that an apology?” Spike wondered, arching a brow at the older man.

Giles coughed, opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it.  He swallowed uncomfortably and tugged at the collar of his shirt a moment before croaking out, “Perhaps.”

Spike curled his tongue against his teeth and then ran it over his lips, as if tasting the satisfaction. “Don’t suppose you’d put that in writing, then?”

“I have no idea of what you speak. I’m quite old and infirm, and my memory is fading. It is quite possible that I am seriously demented – concussed too many times, you see,” Giles replied mockingly.

Spike smirked and nodded. “It’s all the bloody tweed, causes memory loss, or worse … memory loss,” he informed Giles as he looked back down at his wife, who was still talking to Dawn and the git. Spike’s expression and voice turned soft and serious then as he admitted, “All I’ve ever wanted is for her to be happy. Her smile is as brilliant as the sun, and when she laughs, I hear the harps of angels.”

“Indeed? Well, in that case, you may want to get your hearing checked. Need I remind you that you do have full medical?” Giles retorted dryly, before turning his attention back to the tables below, as well.

Spike blew out an amused snort, then both men stood in silence, watching Buffy laughing and talking with her friends, her family. She was glowing, vibrant, as beautiful as that first day Spike had seen her all those years ago, perhaps more so. She was a goddess in his eyes, and nothing would ever change that. Her soul was ageless, evergreen. Her smile was timeless, a Mona Lisa come to life. She was overflowing with life, with love, with a beauty that was eternal.  

“Don’t know how she does it,” Spike breathed, mesmerized by the woman who filled his heart with joy as she talked to Dawn and Nick … that must be it. Who would name their offspring Dick or Prick?

“Speak to Dawn’s young man without clouting him in the head?” Giles wondered, still leaning on the bannister next to Spike as he watched Buffy talking to Dawn’s date, who seemed much too young to be allowed out on a school night.

“Too right,” Spike agreed, looking over at Giles and smirking.

“I told you she was special,” the Watcher retorted haughtily. “Perhaps you will believe me in the future when I generously impart my fashionable tweed wisdom upon you.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Daddy! Daddy!” William cried, jumping up from his place at the table and running to greet his father as Spike and Giles descended the stairs. “Look what Aunt Faith gave me for my birthday!” the boy continued, coming to a stop at the bottom of the stairs and twirling around to give his father the full effect.

Spike reached the bottom of the stairs and knelt down to his son’s level just as the boy came to an excited stop facing him. “That’s bloody brilliant!” Spike acknowledged.

“It’s just like yours!” William insisted, jabbing his fists into the pockets of his new leather duster. “It even has pockets!”

“Does it, then?” Spike asked, admiring the black, leather coat, which nearly dragged the floor on the boy. It wasn’t _exactly_ like his, but it was a fair approximation.

Willow’s voice drifted on the soft breeze to where William and Spike were talking, “God, Buffy, he’s just so _cute_! A mini-Spike.”

William turned a scowl toward the table where his mother and the witches sat, then looked back at Spike. “When I grow up, I’m gonna be a Slayer, just like you, and I’m gonna slay everyone who calls me ‘cute’! We aren’t cute, are we, Daddy?”

Spike clamped his teeth over his lower lip to hold back a laugh but gave his son a stern shake of his head. “Not a cute bone in our bodies. Bloody dangerous, we are.”

“You can’t be a Slayer!” Annie contended, getting up and coming over to the two blonds. “Aunt Faith says only _girls_ can be Slayers.”

“Daddy’s not a _girl_!” William sneered, refuting her.

“Daddy’s an ad-domin-ation,” the girl argued, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked down on her little brother.

“So!? I’ll be an ad-dob-in-ation, too!” William insisted, looking back at Spike. “Won’t I, Daddy?”

“Too right. You bits come from a long line o’ abominations. Yer mum and me, we’re the soddin’ king and queen of Abomination-shire,” Spike assured him. “Can be whatever you want, Junior … you too, sweet pea,” he added, looking up at his daughter.

William stuck his tongue out at his sister and she returned the favor before turning abruptly and heading back to the table, her arms still crossed over her chest dramatically and long hair flying. Spike shook his head and huffed out a short laugh. _Bitty-Buffy in the flesh._

“Look what else!” William continued, looking back at his father as he drew a tube of super-hold hair gel out of his pocket. His voice was low and conspiratorial as he showed it to Spike, his eyes alight with delight. “Don’t tell Mommy.”

Spike arched a brow at his son. “Ya know, Junior, if ya smooth out yer curls, I think she’s gonna notice,” he advised the boy. “She’s sneaky that way.”

“But I’m gonna be just like you,” William insisted. “And she lets you do it.”

“Well … not a matter o’ _letting_ me,” Spike argued, still kneeling in front of his son, who had put the illicit hair gel back into the pocket of his oh-so-cool duster.

His son arched a skeptical brow at Spike. Well … he screwed up his face in an attempt to arch a brow, but Spike got the meaning of the look.  “ _Fine_ , she lets me, but I’m not five.”

“I’m five and _five-sixths_!” William pointed out. “And I’m gonna be just like you.”

With that, the boy turned, his duster whirling out like a cape behind him, and sauntered in his best imitation of his father back to his table.

“The world is doomed,” Giles sighed from behind Spike, having caught the whole conversation.

Spike laughed and stood up. “Always has been, Watcher.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has someone kidnapped P4S and taken over this story? Where’s the bone-crushing angst? Enjoy the break.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	87. Mr. Pratt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike has ‘the talk’ with Dawn’s latest beau.

* * *

 

Spike helped himself to a heaping plate of stuffed shells smothered in a thick, red, meat sauce and several pieces of cheesy garlic toast from the serving table. His stomach and taste buds had been hankering for it since the aroma had hit him up on the landing above and his stomach growled now in anticipation. To wash it down, he grabbed an icy beer from a large cooler and made his way over to his place at the table next to Buffy.

Buffy eyed his plate as he sat down, casting a disapproving look over it. “There’s nothing green there,” she pointed out.

“Is too,” Spike argued, picking up his fork and using one tine to point at a speck of oregano on the garlic toast. “Whaddya call that?”

Buffy laughed and rolled her eyes. “I was thinking more along the lines of a salad. Didn’t you see it?”

“Where do ya reckon the meat and cheese comes from?” Spike wondered, ignoring her question. Of course he saw it, but he wasn’t a bloody rabbit, now was he?

“Ummm … cows?” Buffy guessed.

“And what do cows eat?” Spike continued, taking a bite of the garlic bread. It was perfection. Just the right mix of buttery, garlicy-spiced goodness topped with cheese melted just to the point of being smooth and silky on the tongue, but not hot enough to remove the skin from the roof of your mouth. All that scrumptious delight was carried atop freshly-baked Italian bread that had been toasted to crunchy perfection. Andrew may be a fusspot, but he was a bloody brilliant one.

“Hay and grass, I guess?” Buffy speculated.

“There ya go! Salad by proxy!” Spike asserted, taking a bite of the stuffed shells, another culinary masterpiece of taste, texture, and aroma. He may have to let the little geek have a ride in Betty … err, The Batmobile again. He’d geeked out so much the last time that Spike hadn’t even let Andrew back in the garage, but this meal alone might warrant takin’ the fusspot for a short spin along Highway 1.

Buffy laughed and rolled her eyes. “I’m not super-sure it works that way, babe,” she pointed out.

“Works fer me,” he said, shrugging as he took a swallow of his beer. 

“I think Buffy’s right,” Dawn put in from his other side.

Spike quirked a brow at her. “Didn’t anyone ever teach ya to respect yer elders?”

“Ummmm … no?” Dawn replied, grinning. “I remain charmingly obnoxious like that. Just ask my professors.”

Spike snorted in amusement. “Haven’t gotten yerself expelled, have ya? Is that why you’re here in the middle of the school term?”

“Spike, it’s summertime … as in summer break?” Dawn pointed out. “We’ve got an internship up in Palo Alto for the summer.  Also, I missed your first wedding – which I still have not forgiven you for, by the way. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away this time.”

“And this latest git? Seems like the kinda bloke that would need t’ attend remedial summer school,” Spike posited, drawing a jab in the ribs from Buffy.

“Oi! Watch it, Slayer. Know right-handed people can’t use utensils properly, but try to keep the bludgeoning to a minimum,” Spike complained looking back at her.

“I’ll have you know that Nick is a Rhodes Scholar who graduated from Oxford Summa Cum Laude,” Dawn defended, looking around to see where her beau was. He’d gone to the restroom a couple of minutes ago but hadn’t returned yet.

“In what? _PE_?” Spike continued to jab.

Dawn huffed out a breath. “Really? Spike, you met him at Christmas, and last summer! You know perfectly well he’s got his BA in Cosmology and Natural Science, and he’s in the same PhD program as I am at Cambridge.”

“Oh, a hair dresser, then? Brilliant, that. Could use a trim.”

“Spike, don’t be obtuse,” Dawn sighed. “I like him. _A lot_. Please just try to be …”

“Mr. Pratt! So wonderful to see you again, sir,” Nick greeted Spike in posh Queen’s English, extending his right hand toward Spike from where he stood now behind Dawn’s chair.

Dawn and Buffy both held their breath as Spike looked at the proffered hand a moment, his mouth drawn into a hard line. Finally, after what seemed forever, Spike set his silverware down and pushed back to stand up, grasping the young man’s hand in a crushing grip. To his credit, Nick didn’t wince … much – but returned the gesture with as much strength as he could.

“Dick,” Spike replied dryly, releasing his hand.

“ _Nick_ ,” the young man corrected flatly, meeting Spike’s eyes, as the elder man released his hand.

The boy was of a height with Spike, maybe a little taller, with short-clipped brunette hair that stood up in slightly longer, gelled tufts on the top of his head. It reminded Spike a bit of how Angel wore his hair – it didn’t win the boy any bloody points. Nick had a day or three of dark beard stubble on his face, which Spike reckoned was a fashion statement rather than just a lack of personal hygiene. According to the conversations he’d overheard between Faith, Anya, and Buffy, he knew they considered the boy handsome in a young Brad Pitt sort of way. Spike wasn’t so sure; Nick’s nose looked a little off-center, his jaw seemed weak and his eyes were beady and narrow, like a rat or a ferret.  But maybe that was just him.

Spike knew the young man wasn’t a natural athlete. He’d been a scrawny swot the first time they’d met – yes, he did actually remember it – but Nick had apparently spent time in the gym since then and had added a decent amount of bulk since last summer. It wasn’t a Steve Rogers to Captain America transformation, but Spike reckoned he could knock out a few proper push-ups now and possibly a pull-up or two.

Dawn jumped up to stand next to Nick, linking her arm in his almost protectively. “Tell Spike what you brought,” she urged.

“Right!” Nick beamed a brilliant, Colgate smile with what Spike considered teeth that were too straight and too white – caps if ever he saw them … maybe dentures. The boy’s moss-green eyes glinted with excitement as he looked from her back to Spike. “Thought you would enjoy a case of Imperial Brown Stout Ale. It’s brilliant! Not like the piss water they have here.”

Spike arched a brow at the boy. “That your idea or Dawn’s?”

“Oh! Mine, sir,” Nick assured him. “Dawnie doesn’t care for proper beer, I’m afraid. She wouldn’t know a pale ale from a brown stout. Quite the character flaw, I must say. But, I do my best to overlook it since she has so many other enchanting talents,” he said, giving Dawn a teasing smile that brought a pink tinge to the young woman’s cheeks.

Spike clenched his jaw. He definitely did not like the way the git said, ‘enchanting talents’. After training a piercing blue gaze on him in an attempt to skewer the wanker’s soul – assuming he had one – Spike shifted his eyes to Dawn. Her luminous blue eyes pled with him to just give the boy a break. She wasn’t a girl any longer, she was a woman, but she’d always be the nibblet to him, and she’d always know just the look to give him to get her way.  Spike sighed internally. Bloody Summers women and their woeful eyes would be the death of him one of these days.

“Sounds brilliant,” Spike agreed after a tense moment. “Join me in one?”

“Oh! Yes, sir! I don’t mind if I do,” Nick agreed immediately, his too-perfect smile widening. “I’ll just go fetch them, shall I?” he offered, pulling free of Dawn’s grip and heading for the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Dawn said sincerely, wrapping Spike in a fierce hug.

Spike wrapped one arm around her, patting her back assuringly. “Still don’t like ‘im,” he muttered as she pulled back.

“How much beer would it take for you to like him?” Dawn wondered, brushing a stray lock of her shoulder-length brunette tresses back from her face.

Spike snorted as he sat back down to his meal. “A bloody ocean of it.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“So, what do ya study at Cambridge, then?” Spike asked Nick when he had returned with the beer. Spike had made Dawn switch seats with the git so Nick now sat immediately to Spike’s right.

“Theoretical Physics with a specialty in cosmology. I’m particularly fascinated in wormholes and blackholes. I believe that they could lead to other universes … other worlds, other dimensions, if you will. I hope to discover a scientific technique to create these phenomenon in a controlled environment, create portals, so that we may explore what lies beyond our own universe,” Nick replied before taking a long, appreciative swallow of the strong beer.

“Other dimensions, eh?” Spike asked, arching a skeptical brow at the boy. “Sounds a bit far-fetched if ya ask me. Like something from The Twilight Zone or Buck Rogers. Perhaps ya been sampling too much lager.”

“Oh, no, sir, I assure you …” Nick began, looking at Dawn questioningly, then back at Spike. “I thought … that is to say … Dawn and I are both of a mind on this.”

Spike looked past the boy over to Dawn. “Are you, then?”

“I know what you’re thinking and it’s not like that,” Dawn interjected.

“Mind reader now, are you?”

“You’re thinking Glory and the Senior Partners and hell dimensions and that opening portals could be catastrophically dangerous,” Dawn said.

Spike barked out a sarcastic laugh. “Wonder what could give a bloke a cracked idea like that?”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “We aren’t talking about opening portals willy-nilly,” Dawn defended.

“Oh, well, feel safer already, I do,” Spike mocked.

“If we can figure out the mechanics of them, the physics and science involved, then we can figure out how to not only open them, but how to _close_ them without magic – just using science. Clearly, magic doesn’t always work. For example, that one down in L.A. that just keeps leaking demons in … you remember that one, right?”

Spike shrugged. “Wouldn’t mind a go at one o’ those bloody dragons,” he grumbled. “Xena takin’ it down with a surface ‘t air missile was a soddin’ tragedy.”

“A dragon?” Nick asked, confused, but no one seemed to notice.

Dawn sighed, rolling her eyes, she’d heard it all before from Spike. She continued her argument as if he hadn’t spoken. “Willow and Wes have tried everything to close that one in L.A. with magic. They even asked D’Hoffryn, and no one can get the damn thing completely closed. If we can figure out the physics involved in portals, then we can use science to close them and not have to rely on magic, which just doesn’t work in every case!

“Who knows when someone else will open one. You know it’s only a matter of time, Spike. What if next time it’s Annie who has to die to close it? Or Billy— err … William?” Dawn pointed out, looking over at the kids’ table briefly and then back at Spike.

Spike looked from her to Nick and then back again, lifting his brows and widening his eyes in question.

“Nicky already knows. He knows everything,” Dawn answered the silent question. “We don’t have secrets. I’ve told him everything about me, Glory, Sunnydale, the Hellmouth … everything.”

“Hadn’t actually heard about any dragons,” Nick pointed out, but again, neither Spike or Dawn seemed to notice, as they were intent on each other, speaking across him.

“Does he, then?” Spike questioned, setting down his silverware and sitting back in his chair as he finally changed his focus and leveled a penetrating gaze on the boy. “So, that what sparked yer interest in dimensions and portals, is it? Found somethin’ the girl fancied and took it up so you could get in her knickers?”

“Spike!” Dawn exclaimed sharply. “Stop it.”

“It’s a fair question,” Nick said, lifting a hand to quell Dawn’s objections. “But, no, sir, that is not the case. In fact, it was I who first broached the idea in Professor Endorfman’s Astrophysics lecture hall. I was, of course, mocked by the professor and most of the other students. Apart from one,” he explained, looking over at Dawn glowingly.

“Perhaps it was she who was set on getting into _my_ knickers,” he suggested, giving Dawn a teasing wink before looking back at Spike. It might’ve not been the wisest thing for him to say. Despite his glowing grades and awards and scholarships, Nick seemed to be lacking a little something in the common-sense department.

Spike’s eyes narrowed, and his hands balled into fists. “Not bloody amused, Nancy,” he rumbled.

“Haha! Nick’s such a kidder,” Dawn stammered. “Uhh, okay, yeah … I think I need some air. How about a walk, hun? I’ll tell you about the dragon!” Dawn suggested quickly, standing up and tugging on Nick’s arm.

Nick stood up, his normally congenial, soft, green eyes flashing with annoyance. He leaned down near Spike, keeping his voice low so as to not cause a scene.  His words, however, were no less vehement for the lack of volume.  “My name is not Nancy, nor Dick nor any of the other disrespectful gibes you take pleasure in hurling into my path. I assure you, Mr. Pratt, that I am not the gormless pillock that you assume me to be. In deference to Dawn and my love for her, I have done nothing but show respect and civility to you, and I get nothing but hostility in return.

“I may be well-mannered and impeccably schooled, but I am not a sodding doormat and I do have my limits, so you may kindly piss the fuck off,” Nick informed the angry blond, his Queen’s English slipping dangerously in the process. Nick snatched his beer off the table then, allowing Dawn to pull him toward the open doors at the back of the house.

Spike’s lips curved into a smirky smile as he looked after them, taking another long swallow of his beer. It was bloody good stout. He’d have to keep it hidden from Rupert.

“What happened?” Buffy asked looking over at Spike when Dawn and Nick’s abrupt departure pulled her attention away from the conversation she’d been having with Willow.

Spike shrugged, turning back to face his plate of uneaten ‘salad’ and picking his fork back up. “The pillock’s growin’ on me.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

After dinner, Spike headed out of the house and down to the beach, two bottles of Imperial Brown Stout Ale and a bottle of Coke in his hands. The sun had set and there was no moon, but the lights from the house and the few stars above gave enough light to see Dawn and Nick sitting together on the sand near the water’s edge. She was leaned into him, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her affectionately. Spike could hear their murmured conversation mixed in with the lapping waves as he approached, but couldn’t make out enough words for it to actually qualify as eavesdropping. One annoying disadvantage of being a Slayer instead of a vampire.

Spike cleared his throat as he got nearer them, and the two brunettes turned their heads as one to look back.

Dawn sighed heavily as she and Nick both rose up to their feet, dusting sand off their backsides. Dawn stepped forward toward the blond, signaling for Nick to stay put. She folded her arms over her chest and raised her chin defiantly, her mouth set in a determined line.

“What?” she demanded shortly.

“Just wanted t’ talk to the boy,” Spike replied, doing his best to not react to the anger that rolled off her in waves.

“Unless you’re planning on apologizing, I think you’ve think you’ve said enough!”

“Not even close,” Spike retorted sharply, but then sighed. “Brought a peace offerin’,” he pointed out, holding up the bottles. He singled out the Coke and handed it to her.

Dawn took it, still frowning. “I don’t drink this anymore. It’s full of cancer-causing chemicals, coloring, and high fructose corn syrup from genetically modified corn. We don’t have a full understanding of what GMOs do to our bodies, to our own DNA – it seems to cause mutations. It’s _evil_.”

“Well, _I’m_ genetically modified, a mutant, and still a bit evil, and I’m okay,” Spike contended.

“Couldn’t prove it by me,” Dawn groused.

“Fair point,” Spike agreed. “Not here t’ fight with the wank— … with Nick. Drink the Coke. Live a little – a bit o’ mutant evil’s good for the soul. Let me have a word with your boy.”

“He’s not a _boy_ ,” Dawn pointed out, twisting the lid off the soda with a small, evil hiss of released carbonation.

Spike shrugged. “When you’re as old as me, pet, everyone’s a bloody boy.”

Dawn sighed, turning to look at Nick who had waited as she’d asked, and then back at Spike. “He’s a good man. He’s a nice person. I love him. He makes me happy. He _gets_ me.”

Spike arched a brow at her, the ‘L’ word hadn’t ever been dropped before and now they’d both said it in a short span of time. When she just glared at him, Spike shrugged. “Do my best not t’ kill him then.”

Dawn tsked her tongue. “I’ll have Faith kick your ass if you do or say anything remotely rude.”

Spike snorted out a sarcastic laugh. “Only thing that tart wants to do to my sexy arse can’t be discussed in front of the bits.”

“Well, I’ll tell her to do _that_ , and then I’ll have Buffy kick your ass,” Dawn threatened.

“Fair enough, then,” Spike agreed, pulling her toward him and placing a hard kiss on her forehead. “Run along, now. Enjoy yer fizzy drink. You’ll feel better with a little evil in your gut.”

Dawn turned back to Nick, trying to decide, but finally relented. She gave Spike one more warning look before taking a long swallow of the Coke. “You could’ve at least put some rum in it,” she complained before walking off down the beach.

Nick sighed when he saw Dawn walk away and Spike start for him. Here it was, then. He could see the plans he’d had for the weekend with Dawn evaporating like so much mist in the California dawn.

“Come bearing gifts,” Spike greeted the young man, extending one of the beers toward the tense brunette.

Nick arched a brow. “I believe the Greeks used such a ploy on Troy,” the man observed, but reached out for the beer regardless.

“I like t’ stick with the classics,” Spike agreed as he began walking down the beach in the opposite direction than Dawn had.  Nick rallied his nerve, swallowed back his pride, and fell in step beside Spike, walking in the damp, packed sand near the surf.

The light from the house faded after a few steps, casting them into near-darkness, but then another soft glow from the next house down the beach fell over the sand. They continued like that in silence for what seemed to Nick quite a long time, drinking their beers and walking in and out of shadow, listening to the burbling surf and occasional call of a night bird.

The thought that Dawn’s brother-in-law might actually be taking him off to kill him, or perhaps simply beat him senseless, flitted briefly through the young man’s mind. Dawn had told him some fairly fantastic stories about the blond and he was starting to worry that they may not have all been exaggerations. Nick looked back, trying to judge how far they had come from the house, then up at the other houses which were perched upon the high cliffs. Would anyone hear him if he screamed? Could he outrun the blond to one of those houses? Outswim him, perhaps…

“Dawn thinks ya deserve an apology,” Spike said, jerking Nick out of his contemplations of escape.

“But I take it that you do not,” Nick replied carefully, trying to sound less nervous than he felt.

“Can’t get a measure of a man with ‘sir’ and ‘mister’ and all that polite rot, can I?” Spike admitted before taking another swig of his beer. 

“I don’t quite follow,” Nick admitted, his brows furrowing as he looked over at Spike.

“Took the piss outta ya on yer first visit. Thought I did a fair job of it, but ya came back at Christmas. First one, you are,” Spike informed him. “Ya even kept on with the bloody ‘sir’ and ‘mister’ rubbish. A full soddin’ week of it that time, but couldn’t get you to tell me to get stuffed.”

Spike stopped walking in a pool of light and turned toward the young man, who stopped a half a step later and likewise turned so they were facing each other. “Had t’ up my game, didn’t I? Finally got ya to drop that polite veneer, let me see inside a bit.”

“You … I … to what end, may I ask?” Nick stammered.

“You keep comin’ back,” Spike explained in a voice that implied any fool would know that already.

“Of course. I told you, in deference to Dawn—”

“You, my lad, are the only one who’s had enough ‘deference’ t’ face me more than once. And you made it three times. Must be a good bit of ‘deference’, eh?”

“I … well, yes, as a matter of fact,” Nick agreed, digging into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a small velvet box with a hinged lid. He snapped it open revealing a gold engagement ring with a respectably sized diamond which glittered in the faint light.

Spike looked at it but didn’t reach for it. Instead, he sniffed, pulling himself up to his full height and said, “Sorry, mate. Appreciate the offer, but I’m taken.”

Nick blew out an annoyed breath through his nose and snapped the box closed, stuffing it back into his pocket. “I love her. I want to spend my life with her. If that means putting up with your …”

“Buggering?” Spike suggested.

“… _insolence_ a few times a year,” Nick continued, “then that is a small price to pay.”

“Either I’m losin’ my touch, or you really love her,” Spike observed as he turned and began walking again.

Nick fell in step beside him. “I assure you, sir, your _touch_ is quite … sharply barbed.”

Spike curled his tongue against his teeth in satisfaction. “Well, then here’s another prickly question for ya: What are you willin’ to do, how far would you go, to protect that girl?”

Nick blinked, not ready for that question. He was waiting for the ‘if you hurt her’ threat which he assumed would come next. He’d rehearsed the answer to that. This one caught him off guard. “I … well … I would give everything to protect her. I would die for her.”

Spike stopped again and turned to face the boy, long shadows falling over them just on the edge of another pool of light.

“See, that’s a problem, Nicky,” Spike informed him. “To be in this family, ya gotta be willing to _kill_ for her. Me? Buffy? We’d kill for her. Not only would, but _have_.”

Nick’s brows raised, taking that in as Spike continued speaking. “The rest o’ those people up there?” Spike said, waving a hand back in the direction they’d come. “Every one of ‘em would kill to protect the people they love.

“May seem like the same thing to you, but the two are oceans apart – as far apart as Oxfordshire and Sunnydale,” Spike continued sternly. “So, ‘fore you go down on one knee in front of that girl, you need to give that a roll around in yer noggin. The world she’s from, the one you seem so keen t’ plunge into with yer wormholes? It’s not in bloody Kansas. Dorothy’s trip over the rainbow was a Sunday stroll compared.”

Nick nodded thoughtfully, his brows furrowed pensively, taking all that in. “I … I understand, Mr. Pratt, sir.”

Spike pursed his lips, his eyes narrowed at the young man. “And one other thing. The name’s Spike. If ya call me ‘Mr. Pratt’ one more bloody time, I’ll show ya the difference.”

With that, Spike turned and strode off, heading back the way they’d come, leaving Dawn’s young man staring after him, his mind buzzing with notions that he’d never considered before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think of Nick? Did Spike manage to scare him enough to make him run for the hills? Will Dawn accomplish what no one else has been able to and kill her brother-in-law? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come.
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	88. Old Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An uninvited guest joins the party.

* * *

 

Spike strolled out of the dark and into a bright ring of glowing light from the fire-pit that blazed on the beach behind their house. Their guests, or at least many of them, sat in Adirondack chairs, low-slung beach chairs, or lounged on blankets around the fire.

Oz, his young son Daniel, Sarah, and Annie were nearest the fire, toasting marshmallows on long, thin wire forks. One got too close to the fire and burst into flame as Spike walked up, which drew a peal of delighted laughter from Daniel and moans of dismay from the girls. 

It had been a long day for young William, having to fend off all the ‘cute’ insults from passersby at the airport was very taxing, after all – plus, he’d missed his nap. He was nestled, sleeping, in Buffy’s lap where she sat in one of the chairs a few feet away from the fire, talking to Dawn. The last of the children, Josh, sat bleary-eyed, trying to stay awake, in Xander’s lap, but was clearly losing the fight.

Dawn jumped up when she saw Spike, looking around and behind him for her boyfriend. “Where’s Nick?” she asked urgently, meeting Spike several feet away from the circle of chairs.

Spike looked behind him and shrugged. “Swimming back t’ the motherland?” he guessed.

“Spike! What happened? What did you do?” Dawn demanded.

“Didn’t touch him,” Spike assured her, holding his hands up as if in surrender. “And wasn’t rude. Just … gave him a bit o’ hardtack to chew on.”

Dawn’s brows drew together. “What does that mean? You shoved tacks in his mouth?” she asked, her panic rising.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Nooo… Means, gave him some ideas t’ chew on; he might need a bit more beer t’ swallow it,” Spike replied, holding up his empty bottle. “I wouldn’t mind one either. Ta ever so.”

Dawn sighed, looking into the dark behind Spike but still not seeing Nick. She rolled her eyes then, grabbed the empty bottle from his hand and headed for the house to retrieve more beer.

“What happened?” Buffy asked when Spike sat down in the chair next to her, the one that Dawn had vacated.

“Gave him the lay o’ the land,” Spike explained. “The git intended to propose marriage t’night.”

“Awwww, that’s so sweet,” Buffy cooed, then stopped. “Why do you say that in a tense that is past?”

Spike smirked. “Not sure he’s up t’ joining this family, pet. Just made sure he knew what he was signin’ up for.”

Buffy clicked her tongue and sighed. “Damn it. I really liked him, too,” she groaned. “Plus, he was a cutie!  Never can have enough eye-candy around.”

Spike arched a brow at her, but Annie interrupted whatever Spike was going to say next, running up with a perfectly toasted marshmallow on the end of the long roasting fork. “Daddy! Look what I made for you!” she gushed, nearly stabbing Spike in the chest with the sharp tines.

“Annie! Careful!” Buffy warned, sitting up and reaching for the fork, but Spike got it first, stopping her perilous advance. He grabbed the middle of the long fork by reflex and quickly quelled his next natural instinct to yank it out of her hand and turn the weapon back on his ‘attacker’.

“It’s just how you like it!” his daughter exclaimed, her green eyes glittering with delight, unaware of any misdeed or possible danger she’d been in. “Gooey on the inside and toasty on the outside.”

“Brilliant, sweet pea,” Spike managed. With a deliberate force of will, he kept his voice soft and even rather than remonstrative, which annoyed the hell out of the demon inside him, but pleased his soul. He blew on the roasted cube of gooey decadence a moment to cool it before pulling it off the fork with his fingers and popping it into his mouth.

“Puurr-fect,” Spike slurred after a moment, talking around the sweet treat, as the brown, crunchy skin and melted entrails of the marshmallow merged in his mouth in what was, truly, perfection.

“Do you want another?” the girl asked, clearly pleased, her voice and expression eager.

“Maybe a S’more fer yer mum, eh?” Spike suggested, the sticky treat still distorting his words a bit. “Less dangerous, that is.”

“Okay!” the girl agreed happily, turning on her bare feet in the sand and hurrying back over to the fire so Oz could reload her roasting fork.

“Whose bloody idea was it to give the bits weapons?” Spike wondered, licking a bit of goo off his lips and fingers.

“I think that would be the marshmallow master,” Buffy answered, caught between amusement and concern. “Maybe I’ll just get the kids a couple of plates to use for deliveries,” she suggested, watching an over-eager Sarah take a toasted treat over to Xander in much the same way Annie had delivered hers to Spike.

Buffy stood up from her seat, shifting the sleeping William in her arms as she did so. She handed their son to Spike and stretched her back a moment before saying, “Be right back,” and heading for the house.

William stirred slightly, his blond curls falling over his face as he snuggled against Spike. Finding a comfortable position against his father’s chest, he quickly quieted, his body warm and limp, completely trusting, in his hero’s arms. Though it was summer, the breeze off the cool water of the Pacific could get chilly at night as it swept in over land. Spike brushed the curls back from his son’s face and adjusted the boy’s long, leather duster over his legs to keep the evening chill off.

He snorted lightly, shaking his head, wondering just how they were gonna get William out of the bloody coat to get a bath or change clothes. He’d probably want to sleep in the soddin’ thing. Spike had to wonder if Faith was actually being thoughtful to give it to the boy, or if she knew what kind of tantrums it would cause tryin’ to get Junior out of it now that he’d had it on. Knowing Faith, it was the latter.

Dawn returned then and handed Spike one of the beers. “Has Nick come back yet?” she asked, looking around.

“Sorry, pet,” Spike replied, shaking his head as he took the beer from her.

Dawn sighed, chewing her bottom lip a moment before making up her mind and stalking off in the direction Spike and Nick had gone earlier.

Spike watched her go and felt a tinge of guilt for scaring the wanker off. He wasn’t a bad guy, he supposed, despite his too-perfect teeth and bookish-brain, but he just wasn’t ready for this life, obviously.

It didn’t take long for Dawn to find Nick. He was lying on his back in the sand looking up at the stars just on the edge of the dim light cast by the house next door. Her first thought was that Spike had hurt him, despite his contention that he hadn’t, and she took off in a run when she spotted him.

“Nick!” she called, falling to her knees next to him, dropping the unopened beer in the sand. She hastily moved his hands away from where they rested on his abdomen, frantically checking for injuries, for blood-soaked clothing, for a stake embedded in his flesh.

“Dawn!” he cried in surprise, sitting up as she looked for Slayer-inflicted injuries in the low light.

“Are you okay? What happened? Did Spike hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine,” he assured her, grabbing her wandering hands.

She stopped then and looked at him with confusion. “You scared me! What are you doing flat on your back here in the dark?”

Nick shook his head, releasing her hands. “Just considering some points your brother-in-law made.”

“Like what?” Dawn asked, sitting back on her heels next to him as he drew his legs up a bit, getting more comfortable.

“Whether I can be what you need,” he replied solemnly.

“What does that mean? You _are_ what I need,” she asserted.

“I’ve never killed anyone … never really even been in a fight … not since I was five or six, at any rate. And I don’t believe that one season of rugby would truly count. I barely played at all,” he admitted.

“Oookaaay …” she drawled out. “Good…?”

“Not according to Mr. … to Spike,” Nick told her as he rescued the beer from the sand and proceeded to give her a short summary of his conversation with her brother-in-law.

“Well, that’s just ridiculous!” Dawn declared when he’d finished. “I don’t need anyone to protect me!”

“But you have in the past, haven’t you?” Nick wondered.

Dawn rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “That was a long time ago. Things are different now. I’m not a kid and we don’t live near a Hellmouth … well, there are the Hell-Fire Caves in Wycombe, but I don’t think that’s a real Hellmouth. Too many tourists, and not nearly enough vampires.”

Nick nodded and looked out at the dark ocean, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around his knees. “You know what happened to my parents when I was thirteen. What sparked my interest in portals. Why I believe they exist.”

Dawn nodded. “You saw something, probably a Morituri demon if I had to guess, drag them into a bright light and just vanish. No one believed you … the police said they’d either abandoned you or had been abducted and killed … by a human. They’ve never been found.”

Nick looked over at her, his gaze intent even in the dim light. “I don’t want to ever feel that helpless again, Dawnie. I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t save them. I could do nothing. Mr. Pr— … Spike’s right.”

“He’s _not_ right. He’s the total opposite of right! As in … wrong!” Dawn argued fervently.

Nick reached a hand out and touched her cheek gently. Dawn leaned into his touch, placing her hand over his, holding it in place.

“I’ve been lying here looking at the stars contemplating possibilities,” Nick continued in a deep, soft voice. “What if … what if someone threatened you, or some _thing_. What if those hideous demons came back and dragged _you_ into a portal? Could I protect you? Could I save you?”

Dawn began to shake her head, refuting the need, but Nick kept talking. “The answer is … I don’t know if I can right now, but I know that I can _learn_ to. And I know that I would be willing to do anything it takes to not lose you. To protect you. To save you from any threat. Perhaps that means killing, or even worse, enduring your annoying brother-in-law.”

Dawn snorted a silent chuckle at his joke … at least she thought it was a joke.

“I love you. I can’t imagine a life without you in it. I may not be all you need at this moment, but I can become that man. I promise to become a man even Spike would deem to be worthy of you.

“I want to marry you, Dawn Summers.”

Dawn’s eyes sprung open, wide as saucers. “You … what?”

Nick pulled his hand away from her face and leaned back, digging into the pocket of his jeans for the little box. When he wrangled it out, he opened it and pulled the ring out, holding it out to her. “Will you do me the honor of marrying me? Will you spend your life with me?”

“I …” Dawn began stammering as she looked from his face to the ring and back again. “… Yes!” she gushed after a moment, long enough for Nick to have several nearly-fatal heart attacks in rapid succession.

Nick let out the breath he’d been holding, and his heart began beating semi-regularly again as he slid the ring onto her left hand, his fingers shaking slightly in the process.

“Oh, my God!” Dawn cried as the cool, heavy weight of the gold settled on her finger, the diamond glittering in the dim light. She lunged at him then, wrapping her arms around him and knocking him back onto the soft sand.

“I love you so much,” she vowed as he wrapped his arms around her and their lips met in a joyous celebration of love, and the promise of forever.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy sat in her chair next to Spike enjoying the S’more that Annie had made for her. The hot, gooey marshmallow oozed out, melting the chocolate and combining into an explosion of deliciousness in her mouth with each bite. Spike watched her tongue dart out, capturing bits of the sticky sweetness that had escaped and clung to her lips. It was starting to get late, and that bottle of honey was up in their room, just waiting for that soft, pink tongue to have a taste, to clean it off warm, yearning flesh.

Annie and Sarah were still roasting marshmallows with Oz, but Tara and Willow had taken Daniel up for his bath and bed. Spike hoped they could do the same soon with Annie and William, and then head to bed themselves. He watched a wide yawn escape Annie’s lips and smiled, hopeful that Buffy would decide soon that the kids had stayed up long enough past their bedtimes.

So lost was he in his licentious thoughts that he didn’t notice the man walking along the shore, emerging out of the darkness and heading toward the group until he was nearly upon them. Spike jumped up at the sight of the tall, clearly intoxicated man, hastily handing their sleeping son back to Buffy.

“Sp-ike!” the man called, putting a harsh, sharp emphasis on the ‘Sp’ – practically spitting it. “My invitation seems to have gotten … lossst,” the man slurred as he waved a gun wildly around in front of him.

“Finn,” Spike snarled, taking several steps forward to put himself between the drunk ex-soldier and the rest of the group. “Put the bloody gun down!”

“Oh, this?” Finn asked, looking at it as if he’d forgotten it was there. “No. I don’t think so.”

Buffy quickly handed the sleeping William to Giles. “Get the kids back!” she instructed, but Anya, Xander, and Oz had already started moving back away from the circle of chairs, and away from Riley Finn, with Annie, Sarah, and Josh.

Buffy hurried to stand beside Spike. The other Slayers that were on the beach – Faith, Amanda, and Kennedy – began circling around to either side of the threat. Faith and Amanda went to the left and Kennedy to the right of Finn, trying to find an opening to take him down.

“Stop moving!” Finn ordered, aiming the Glock toward the two advancing Slayers to his right and firing a single round into the sand at their feet, close enough to kick sand up onto their legs. He then swung the gun back to point directly at Spike’s chest, his twitching finger resting dangerously on the trigger.

Everyone jumped at the deafening sound and froze, wide-eyed and suddenly unsure what Riley Finn would do next.

The thunderous boom of the shot sent a wave of horrible déjà vu sweeping over Buffy and she suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Beads of sweat erupted over her flushed skin as her heart lurched and began to race wildly in her chest. The acrid stench of gunpowder filled her nostrils and her ears rang with the deafening echo of the shot. Her head swirled, and excruciating pain radiated out from her chest. Buffy looked down and saw blood covering her shirt, pouring out of a bullet hole in her chest. She could feel her lungs filling with blood, taste it in her mouth, feel the warmth of it seeping into her clothing.  Images of Warren, of his gun, and his threats against Dawn rang in her ears in a horrible flashback that froze her in place.

“Riley! What are you doing?” Sam demanded, the only person who didn’t stop moving when Finn fired the weapon. She moved up next to Spike and Buffy and then stepped forward, putting herself between Finn and the two blondes. The gun moved slightly, tracking to aim directly at her chest then.

“Just came to offer congratulations to the happy couple on their upcoming, if well overdue, nuptials,” Finn replied, still slurring some of the words. The gun dropped slightly, aiming more at Sam’s stomach as he spoke, as if it had gotten too heavy to hold up. 

“Well, people usually don’t use guns for that, Riley. Why don’t you give it to—” Sam tried, reaching out toward him and taking a step forward.

“Back the fuck off, bitch!” Finn warned, suddenly becoming alert, as he lifted the gun back up to aim directly at her head.

Sam stopped and raised her hands up in surrender. “Okay, no problem,” she said calmly.  “Let’s just talk about it.”

“What’s there to talk about? You … all of you! You ruined my life!” Finn insisted, waving the gun dangerously to encompass Spike, Buffy, and Sam.

Spike pulled Sam back. Sam didn’t want to get in a tussle with the blond and upset Riley further, so she went when Spike tugged on her shoulder and pressed her back behind him as he stepped forward.

“Ah, there’s the big hero,” Finn sneered sarcastically, training the gun back on Spike.

“You want a piece o’ me? No problem on my end. But this ain’t the place. Got bits here,” Spike told the man reasonably, moving forward another step to place himself front and center again, trying to block both Buffy and Sam, as well as everyone else, from the line of fire.

“ _Bits_?” Riley scoffed, looking back at the group of adults and children who had frozen a few feet beyond the circle of chairs when he’d told everyone to stop moving. “You know, I checked on you and Buffy. You didn’t get married in Nevada – no record of it. So, I’m sure that bunch of bastard trash can handle seeing your brains blown out. Not like you’re really their father, after all.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed dangerously, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “Watch yer mouth,” he growled.

“Or you’ll do what?! I’m gonna guess that even a vampire turned Slayer will die when they get shot in the head,” Finn spat.

“Riley,” Sam cajoled from behind Spike.

“You shut up! Don’t you think you’ve done enough?!” Finn barked at her, shifting his eyes, but not the gun, off Spike.

“I haven’t done anything to you! No one here’s done anything to you! You did it all on your own. You made your own choices, starting in the Hellmouth!” Sam insisted, growing angrier with every word.

“He’s a demon! We don’t risk our asses for demons!” Finn argued, gesturing at Spike dangerously with the gun.

“He was a fallen comrade!” Sam insisted, trying to step around Spike again, but Spike moved to the side, blocking her advance.

“Let’s not piss off the barmy wanker with the firearm, eh?” Spike murmured.

“Sure, you’d see him as a ‘ _comrade’_ since you’re fucking him! Just like Buffy!” Finn retorted, the gun following Spike’s move to the side. “Why can’t you see that he’s a goddamned murderer!? He’s an evil monster who I should’ve put down years ago!!”

“This again!? I’m not fucking him! I never cheated on you, you stupid son-of-a-bitch!” Sam raged, trying again to step around Spike, with no more success than before. He just moved to the other side and blocked her again.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Not helpin’, pet,” he muttered in a low voice as he kept his body between her and her ex.

“You divorced me!” Finn shot back, the gun wavering slightly in his hand, but his finger still on the trigger perilously. “You left me for _him_!”

“You’re so delusional! How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not fucking Spike and never have been!?” Sam retorted. “I divorced you cos you’re not the man I thought you were! You’re a vindictive, spiteful, jealous ass!”

“I was court martialed! They sent me to Leavenworth for seven fucking years!!” Finn barked back at her.

“Because you stayed drunk all the damn time and got half your squad killed by a pack of Tibetan Yamdrok demons!! They sent you to rehab three times before that! What the fuck did you expect, Finn? I didn’t put the bottle in your hand! I didn’t send your squad into that mountain pass in the middle of a blizzard to be turned into popsicles for those demons!” Sam argued. “That’s all on YOU!”

“You left me! For this piece of shit!” Riley contended, gesturing at Spike again with the gun, this finger hovering perilously over the trigger.

Sam let out a shriek of frustration. “Oh. My. God! How many times are we going to have this conversation?”

Spike caught a glimpse of movement behind Riley and saw Nick slowly advancing on Finn from behind, unseen by the enraged ex-soldier who was still focused wholly on the argument with Sam. Spike averted his eyes quickly, returning his gaze to Riley and the gun. Finn might be drunk and delusional, but he was still a highly trained soldier, he’d notice if Spike was not looking at the threat. Scaring Dawn’s boy off was one thing, getting him shot was something else.

“So, I reckon it’s my fault, then? All of it?” Spike asked Finn in a calm voice, drawing Finn’s attention away from Sam and back to the blond.

“Damn right it is,” Riley snarled, leveling the gun at Spike’s chest again.

“Finn, the police are coming,” Sam warned from behind and slightly to Spike’s right where she stood now near Buffy, having been thwarted in all her efforts to get past Spike.

Buffy remained frozen in place, her eyes wide but seeing something far away. Her body trembled in fright, in the pain of Warren’s bullet striking her, in the certain knowledge that she was dying. She was leaving Spike. She was leaving everyone. Annie. William. They were just babies. They needed her. Her heart constricted painfully. She couldn’t breathe. She was drowning. Drowning in blood. So much blood. So cold. Why was she so cold?

_Oh God, no. Please … not again._

Riley snorted, his gaze flicking to Sam momentarily then back to Spike. “You think I care about police?”

In that moment Spike stole another look at Nick. He was close now, close enough to launch himself at the larger, heavier Finn, perhaps knock him down, or at least off balance. Nick had stopped moving, crouched down, waiting for his chance, probably building up his nerve, too, Spike thought. Spike’s eyes met the young man’s and he gave the briefest of nods before turning his attention back to Finn and the gun. He hoped Dawn’s boy had the nerve, but either way Spike had to do something soon, before Finn decided to.

“What do ya care about, then?” Spike asked, taking a small step forward, trying to get within reach of the gun.

“Only one thing, Spike. Ruining your life like you ruined mine,” Finn sneered as he swung the gun toward Buffy and pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ARGH!! No! Buffy! Will someone just kill Finn already?!? 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! Lots more to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	89. Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holding out for a hero...

* * *

 

There was a split second of frantic movement and deafening sound, of paralyzing fear and galvanizing terror as Finn swung the gun to bear on Buffy’s chest and squeezed the trigger in earnest. 

Several things happened in that life-and-death moment:

Nick launched himself at Finn’s back in a credible rugby tackle, hitting the larger man’s legs with his full weight and driving the ex-solider forward and down. Spike lunged forward with Slayer strength and speed, and grabbed for the gun. He pushed it up just as Finn fired, pointing the weapon into the air as he wrenched it from the drunken man’s hand. Sam dove against the unmoving, unseeing Buffy, knocking her down to the ground, covering the Slayer protectively with her body.

In the next moment Finn was swarmed with fuming Slayers. Nick scuttled back from the angry, punching, kicking, powerful women who were making certain that the gunman stayed down and then some. Dawn ran up from the shadows to check on her fiancé, her cell-phone in hand, still speaking with the 911 dispatcher, telling them what was happening as sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer.

Spike whirled around, leaving Finn to the other Slayers. His heart pounded harder than he’d ever felt it before, a staccato drumbeat in his chest that threatened to break his ribs. He pressed the gun into Sam’s hand as she lifted up off Buffy, and he dropped to his knees in the sand next to his wife. “Buffy! Are you hit?”

Buffy blinked up at him, her eyes blank and unseeing. ‘ _Pickles.’_   She could feel the word come from her lips with splatters of blood, feel liquid filling her lungs, feel her life slipping away.  _Last dance._

“Buffy!” Spike screamed breathlessly, running his hands over her, checking for wounds but not finding any.

“Mommy! Mommy!” William and Annie wailed, running toward her, having pulled free from the group of adults holding them back away from the gunman.

_Annie. William_. Buffy blinked again, trying to focus. Everything hurt. She couldn’t breathe. Blood. So much blood. _So cold. I’m sorry. Spike. I’m sorry. I love you. The babies. Oh, my babies._

“Spike,” she finally whispered just as her children dove atop her in the sand, driving the small amount of air she’d managed to take in out of her lungs in a whoosh.

She was trembling, her heart racing much too fast, her skin damp and clammy, her mind awash in terror. Buffy could still taste the blood, the smell of gunpowder was sharp and caustic in her nostrils, and the sound of the gunshot rang horrifyingly in her ears. But her children were here. Their small, warm bodies and soft, whimpering cries brought her back from her haunted past. Buffy closed her eyes and felt warm tears roll down her face, the flashback slowly fading from her mind. She wrapped her arms around her children as a sob wracked her body and her tears came harder.

It wasn’t Warren. She wasn’t shot. She wasn’t dying again.

“It’s okay … okay … I’m … I’m okay,” she managed after a few moments, reaching a hand out to the terrified and confused Spike, pulling him down atop the crying children who clung to her.

“It’s okay,” she repeated, unsure if she was assuring them or herself.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 “Should we cancel—?” Sam began to ask Buffy later.

“Absolutely not!” Buffy replied, cutting the Watcher off before she could finish the question.

The police had hauled a dazed, barely-conscious, Riley Finn off some time ago. The investigators, however, took longer. They had just finished their questions and headed out, leaving Buffy, Sam, Spike, Nick and Dawn alone on the beach. Everyone else had been released earlier, and had taken all the kids to the house, assuring Buffy and Spike that William and Annie would be fine.

“I’m not gonna let Riley Finn fuck this up. I’ve been planning this for months. Everyone’s here. Everything’s ready. We’re gonna have a good time tomorrow if I have to kill every single person on the face of the Earth to do it,” Buffy insisted as they all began walking toward the house. “I refuse to let him win!”

Sam gave her a tired smile, tucking a thick lock of errant hair back behind her ear, and nodded. “Okay, whatever you want.”

“Anyway, we have something else to celebrate,” Buffy announced, taking Dawn’s left hand in hers and lifting it up so Sam and Spike could see the ring.

“Oh, wow! Congratulations, you guys!” Sam gushed. “That’s so awesome!”

“Thanks!” Dawn beamed, giving Nick an admiring smile.

“Could I have word,” Spike grated out, his eyes meeting Nick’s across the line of females that walked between them. 

“Spiiike…” Dawn drawled, objecting as her fiancé stopped walking, and turned to face his future brother-in-law. Buffy gave her sister a shake of the head and grabbed her elbow, propelling Dawn away from the two men.

“Mr …” Nick began, but stopped when Spike arched a brow at him. “I mean to say, _Spike_ … I believe I know what you are going to say.”

“Doubtful,” Spike argued, extending his right hand toward the younger man. “Welcome t’ the family.”

Nick stared at Spike’s extended hand a moment, stunned, but then took it in a firm grip. “Thank you.”

Spike nodded and didn’t try to crush the boy’s hand this time as he shook it. “Did brilliantly. With the wanker,” Spike added, in case that wasn’t clear. “Full disclosure – if ya hurt that girl, I will make ya wish you’d never been born.”

“I … uhh … would not expect anything less of you,” Nick stuttered, his long-rehearsed response to that, which he’d been prepared to deliver earlier, having completely fled his mind. His guts contorted into painful spasms in his abdomen as Spike squeezed down on his hand just a fraction more than was comfortable, driving the message home.  “And, um, thank you… about the … uh … _wanker_. I wasn’t certain it was the right strategy,” the boy admitted, trying not to grimace in pain or yank his hand away from the Slayer.

“How many strategies had ya worked out, then?” Spike wondered, releasing Nick’s hand, feeling sure his message had been received.

“Well, to be honest, just that one. Which is something I would like to discuss with you,” the brunette replied, trying to surreptitiously massage the pain from his hand as the two men began walking again, following the ladies toward the house.

“Is it, then?”

“Yes, I considered your advice very carefully, and I feel that, although I am clearly not everything I should be to fit into this family, I am capable and more than willing to learn. Perhaps you could offer some advice or training in that regard,” Nick said.

Spike nodded as they started up the stairs to the house. “Could do,” he agreed, slapping the boy on the back in a friendly gesture.

Nick grimaced and nearly stumbled on the next step, but caught himself in time to keep from actually falling up the stairs. “Thank you,” he gasped out. “I think,” he muttered getting his breath back.

“May I ask … does this sort of thing happen often?”

 “Naaaa” Spike shrugged. “Most things that want t’ kill us don’t use guns.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Mommy! Daddy!” William and Annie both cried when Spike opened the door to the master bedroom. The children scrambled off the big bed and wrapped themselves around their parents’ legs in desperate, worried hugs.

Willow closed the book she’d been reading to them and struggled up to her feet, pressing a hand against her pregnancy-weary lower back and looking apologetic. “I couldn’t get them to go to their own beds. They were afraid the police had taken you away.”

Buffy lifted William up and settled him on her hip. His curls were still damp from his bath and were cool against her heated cheek as he wrapped his arms around her neck, holding on tightly. “It’s okay, baby. Everything’s okay,” she cooed as she walked in and sat down on the bed with him.

“I told them, but …” Willow shrugged, moving toward the door as Spike guided Annie into the room and over to the bed next to her mum.

 “It’s okay, Will. Thanks,” Buffy offered, giving her friend a small, grateful smile.

Annie sat down on the bed next to Buffy, stilling holding tightly onto Spike’s hand. Spike sat down next to his daughter as Willow left the room, closing the door behind herself.

“What was wrong with that man?” Annie asked immediately, her bright, green eyes looking worriedly between Buffy and Spike. Her innocent eyes were ringed with red and swollen from crying … and perhaps not quite so innocent as they had been just a few hours ago.

“He was very angry about something that happened a long time ago,” Buffy explained.

“Why? What happened?” William asked, his blue eyes were also red and swollen, his face blotched with patches of red from his tears.

“It’s complicated,” Buffy explained. “But he thinks that … well, he blames us for things that have gone wrong in his life. Us and Aunt Sam.”

“He said bad words,” Annie observed.

“Did he?” Buffy asked – she couldn’t actually remember anything between that first gunshot and Annie and William crying atop her. She looked questioningly at Spike, who rolled his eyes.

“I know what it means,” her daughter asserted. Buffy’s eyes went wide – afraid she knew what bad word Riley had said, even though she didn’t have any actual memory of those minutes – and she looked at Spike again. He shook his head; he bloody well never told Annie what that particular bad word meant.

“What does it mean, honey?” Buffy asked, trying to sound casual.

“He thinks Aunt Sam sexed Daddy,” Annie explained, making Buffy’s mouth form into a stunned ‘O’ for a moment.

“Who told you that?”

“Aunt Anya,” Annie replied.

“Oh, how lovely of her,” Buffy gritted out. “And … did she tell you what ‘sex’ is?”

“She didn’t have to. I already know. Sexing is gross stuff like you and daddy do, like _kissing._

“It’s how you make babies,” Annie revealed confidentially, wrinkling her nose up. She turned anxious, green eyes on her father. “Did you do sexing with Aunt Sam?”

“No, pet, never,” Spike assured her.

“Good, cos you should only make babies with Mommy,” his daughter informed him.

Spike nodded thoughtfully. “Can’t argue with that, pet.”

“Why did the man think you were a demon?” Annie asked, looking up at her father with confusion.

Spike looked at Buffy, who lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his lips pursed in thought a moment before answering. “A long time ago, before you were born, I … well, I wasn’t always a Slayer.  I … well, ya see, there was this … that is to say…”

“You remember Mr. Angel, right? We met him down in L.A. a few times? He’s the vampire with a soul,” Buffy broke in on Spike’s spluttering.

Annie turned and looked at her, nodding. “Well, your dad was like him—”

“Not like bloody Angel,” Spike objected with a growl.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Your dad was a vampire with a soul and he helped save the world, so, the Powers That Be rewarded him by changing him into a Slayer so he could be your daddy. That’s what the man was talking about – he knew your dad back when he was a vampire.”

“But Mr. Angel isn’t evil … is he?” William wondered, his small face awash in confusion. “He gave me a pen.”

Buffy bit her lip. Leave it to Angel to think a pen was a great gift for a small child. “No, well, not usually … he’s just … ummm … grumpy,” Buffy assured him.

“Was Daddy grumpy, too … when he was a vampire, I mean?” Annie wondered.

Buffy pulled her top lip between her teeth a moment to thwart a grin.

“Angel’s grumpy cos he’s a daft as a rock and twice as ugly,” Spike asserted. “I’m too bloody good-looking and athletic to be grumpy – vampire or otherwise.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and started to say something, but was interrupted by her son, worry shaking in his small voice, “Are the police gonna take us away from you now?”

“No, baby. Why would they?” Buffy answered, turning her attention to him.

“That man said you weren’t really married, that you lied,” William replied, looking at her intently. “He said we aren’t really yours.”

“Well, just like everything else he said, he’s wrong,” Buffy assured her son vehemently. “Your father and I are married in every way that matters. We vowed our love to each other forever, and we meant it with our hearts and souls. We exchanged rings …. They’re our promise. You are our babies, and no one will ever, ever, _ever_ take you away from us. I promise.”

“Ya remember when ya wanted t’ wear my ring? Wouldn’t let ya, would I?” Spike interjected.

William nodded his head. “You said it was special. It kept Mommy’s love next to you all the time.”

Buffy blinked dampness back that had suddenly sprung to her eyes and gave Spike a small smile. She reached a hand out and placed it over Spike’s, covering it and Annie’s, their daughter still holding on tightly to her father’s hand as if he might slip away if she let go.

“And I have his love here, always with me,” Buffy agreed, lifting her left hand out to show the old, battered silver band. “The man was just confused – about a lot of things. We’ve been married for a very long time.  You know that.”

“Ten years,” Annie offered.

“That’s right. And tomorrow we’re going to renew our vows because the first time we did it in private and didn’t invite anyone. So, this time we thought we’d have everyone here for the celebration. Including the two people we love most in the world: you guys.”

“So, the police won’t take us away from you?” William asked again, searching Buffy’s face with earnest, blue eyes.

“No, baby. I promise that they won’t. We’ll never leave you. They took the bad man away. Everything’s fine now,” she assured them both.

Spike felt her hand tremble where it lay over his and covered it with his free hand, trying to reassure her, to comfort her.  Their eyes met over the top of Annie’s head and held for a long moment. He could feel her resolve slipping, her fear returning. He could see her fighting to hold everything in, to not frighten the bits by showing any doubt or fear.

“Right, then,” Spike announced a bit too loudly in the quiet room. “Got a big day t’morrow, yeah? And it’s about four days past your bedtime,” he continued, standing up and reaching for William’s hand. “Best get you lot to bed now.”

The boy clung tighter to Buffy’s neck, burying his face against her shoulder. “I wanna stay with you,” he begged.

Buffy swallowed back the irrational panic she felt rising in her again and gave him a reassuring hug. “I promise everything’s alright, honey. Go to bed now. When you wake up in the morning we’ll be here, just like always, and everything will be fine.”

“C’mon, Junior,” Spike cajoled, pulling free of Annie’s grip and gently lifting his son off Buffy to cries of protest from the boy. “Shhhh …” Spike cooed softly, settling William against his chest as he headed out of the room.

Annie gave Buffy a tight, desperate hug and followed her father, looking back pensively as they left the room. Buffy gave her daughter a smile that she hoped didn’t look like a manically deranged psychopath just before the door closed, leaving Buffy alone.

She looked down at her trembling hands, felt her heart skitter and skate in her chest and her teeth begin to chatter as if she were freezing. She felt the fear of leaving her children, of leaving Spike, begin to build inside her again. Something about trying to reassure William that they would never leave had opened that floodgate and released the rising panic once again.

“Get it together, Summers,” she demanded out loud, clenching her fists to stop the trembling and trying to breathe long, deep inhalations to calm her racing heart. “What is wrong with you?”

Buffy dropped her head into her hands, her elbows propped against her knees and began to cry. Whether from fear or frustration, shame or anger, or a combination of all of them, she didn’t know. Thoughts and feelings seemed to ricochet through her, none staying in one place long enough for her to grab onto. She’d never felt so pathetic and useless in all her life. She’d frozen. She. Had. Frozen. How was that even possible?

Somewhere down the hall a door slammed, and Buffy jumped, flinging herself down onto the floor, suddenly completely overwhelmed with panic. All she could see was the barrel of a gun, huge and black, pointing directly at her, filling her vision. All she could feel was a bullet slamming into her chest, knocking her down with its impact. All she could smell was the acrid scent of gunpowder. All she could hear was the wheezing sound of her breath as she drowned in her own blood. All she could think about was leaving her babies, leaving Spike … breaking her promise.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 “Is Mommy okay?” Annie asked as she followed Spike down the hall toward the children’s rooms.

Spike glanced back over his shoulder at the closed door, his expression worried, but said, “Be fine, she will. Just needs t’ get some kip. Been a long day, yeah?”

The girl screwed her mouth up in a thoughtful grimace but nodded. “Yeah.”

“Put me down! Mommy!” William wailed against Spike, his feet kicking wildly into Spike’s groin and hip as he tried desperately to pull out of his father’s arms. Tears streaked his face as he looked back over Spike’s shoulder at the closed door of his parent’s room.  “Mommy!”

“STOP THIS BLOODY MINUTE!” Spike demanded threateningly as he wrapped his other arm around the boy’s legs to halt the assault.

William stopped, shocked into stillness, his blue eyes shimmering and wide. His jaw trembled with pent-up emotion and fear as he looked at his father with apprehension, tears streaming in rivers down his little face.

Spike’s words had come out more forcefully than he’d intended, every nerve in his body was tattered and frayed beyond reason, his mind awash in worry. He felt a deep stab of guilt deep in his heart as his resolve to never, _ever_ turn into his own father reasserted itself. _Bloody hell._

“Sorry. Didn’t mean t’ growl at ya, son,” Spike apologized sincerely and immediately, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly as he changed his grip on the boy to a comforting embrace instead of a restraining grasp. “I know yer upset, but need ya both to be strong now so I can help yer mum,” Spike told them as he entered William’s room, Annie still following.

Spike laid the boy down atop his Spider-Man themed sheets, sitting down next to him on the narrow mattress. “The truth of it is, yer mum’s had a bad time with guns before. They scare her,” Spike admitted as Annie sat down next to him on William’s bed.

“Nothing scares Mommy,” Annie insisted, but it came out less sure than she’d intended.

Spike nodded but said, “Everyone’s scared of something, pet, even yer mum.”

“What are you scared of?” William wondered, wiping his tears and running nose with the sleeve of his pajamas. For a moment Spike wondered how Willow had gotten him out of the duster. He’d have to ask her. Hopefully she hadn’t had to resort to magic.

“Me?” Spike sighed. “Losin’ you two … losin’ yer mum. That’s what scares me.”

William started crying again in earnest and lunged back into Spike’s arms. “That scares me too,” he sobbed, wrapping his arms around Spike’s neck in a five-year-old’s version of a death grip. “I want to stay with you.”

“I know you do, mate, but I need ya to be brave now and believe me when I say it’s all gonna be okay. No one’s getting lost, I promise. But, I need your help so I can help your mum, yeah?” he told them, pressing William away again and looking into the boy’s eyes intently. “Can you do that?”

William shook his head negatively, curls bouncing wildly around his cherubic face. “I’m not brave. I’m scared.”

Spike sighed. Buffy needed him, he knew it, but so did his children. He felt like he was being forcibly ripped apart, beginning right in the middle of his chest. He thought a century as a vampire had taught him what true pain was, but it didn’t even begin to touch this stabbing, wrenching agony in his heart. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his thoughts and ease the tightness that was making it hard for him to breathe. Finally, he decided that he’d go get Dawn or Giles or … _someone_ to stay with the boy when Annie offered, “It’s okay, Daddy. I’ll stay with him. We’ll be okay.”

She walked around to the other side of William’s bed and drew back the covers. “We’ll be brave together, okay?” she asked William, climbing into the bed, leaving space for him next to her. “You can be a Slayer, and I’ll be a Watcher – they’re always brave.”

Spike tilted his head as he gave his daughter a look of adoration, then turned back to his son. “Always easier to be brave when ya got someone to be brave with. Why Slayers have Watchers, yeah?”

“C’mon, William,” Annie coaxed. “Everything will be better in the morning.”

“I love you, Junior,” Spike murmured, setting his son back down next to his sister.

“I love you, too,” the boy replied, sniffling and wiping his face again with his sleeve. “Do you promise everything will be okay?”

“I promise,” Spike whispered.

“Cross your heart?” his son continued soberly.

“Cross m’ heart,” Spike assured him, making an ‘X’ over his aching heart. They’d never done the ‘hope to die’ part of that promise – it hit too close to home.

“Spit swear,” William demanded, spitting on his right palm and extending it toward his father.

Spike curled this tongue against his teeth a moment, but then returned the gesture, spitting on his palm and shaking his son’s small hand. “I swear,” he vowed as he stood up, releasing the boy’s hand. He pulled the covers up over his children, who snuggled down beneath them as if the Spider-Man sheets would shield them from any ghouls or ghosts that may appear in the night.

“Love you, my bitty Buffy,” Spike said, touching a kiss onto his daughter’s forehead.

“I love you too, Daddy. Tell Mommy, too … we didn’t get to tell her.”

Spike nodded, turning on the little spiderweb-shaped nightlight next to the bed. “I’ll tell ‘er. No worries now. Get some sleep.”

Spike heard another choked whimper from his son’s throat even as his braver, older sister tried her best to ease and assure him.

Never in well over a century on this Earth had Spike ever known such immense joy or such immense pain as he had over the last few years. Everything seemed magnified. Every peal of laughter from his children and every teardrop they shed went straight to his heart, straight to his very soul.  Their laughter lifted him higher than the clouds; their tears threatened to drown him in their pain. He wanted desperately to ease their worry, to take away every scrap of fear they were feeling now.

He stopped and turned back to the bed, crouching down next to it in the dim light. Spike twisted the skull ring off his finger. It didn’t come easily; it had been there for a decade. He tugged it off over his knuckle, leaving a wide, snow-white indention in his flesh where it had been.

“Here,” Spike said in a low voice, reaching out for William’s small, innocent hand. “You keep yer mum’s love with you tonight, yeah? She’ll keep ya safe.”

The boy blinked down at the ring a moment, his tears easing, then his fingers closed over it protectively.

William nodded, squeezing the ring in his hand tightly as he brought it up against his chest, hugging it to his heart and sighing as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his small frame.

Annie looked up at her father and gave him one of Buffy’s enigmatic smiles, one of those that always made Spike feel like he was loved, that he was worthy, that he was everything she needed. He blinked back his own tears as he stood up, touching another soft kiss to his daughter’s forehead and murmuring, “Goodnight, sweet girl,” before leaving them there, protected by a mother’s love and Spider-Man sheets.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

In the hall, Spike nearly bowled Giles down as he turned without looking and began sprinting back to Buffy. Spike grabbed the man, hauling the Watcher back to his feet just before Giles’ ass hit the floor. They danced a moment, stumbling, turning, Spike trying to steady the older, weaker man and keep them both on their feet.

“Bloody hell!” Spike exclaimed, finally getting them both stopped and steady, his hands clutched tightly on the Watcher’s upper arms. “Ya okay, Watcher?”

“I’m sure I’ve been hit harder in the past,” Giles assured him, straightening his dislodged glasses. “That herd of rampaging zombie elephants in Mozambique a few years ago comes to mind.”

Spike snorted. “Apologies,” he offered again, looking down the hall worriedly.

“Where, pray tell, is the fire now?” Giles wondered.

Spike sighed and flung one hand towards the master suite and one toward William’s room. “The bits are scared, and Buffy’s …” Spike shook his head, unsure. “Xena told me it looked like a flashback … called it PTSD? Ya heard of it?”

Giles nodded. “It appears that Warren has not finished haunting her,” Giles observed soberly. “You should be with her. I’ll check on the children, see if I can get them to sleep.”

Spike nodded. “Thank you,” the Slayer offered sincerely, his heart unclenching a bit in his chest.

“Of course. It’s what family does.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Giles entered William’s room and both children looked up eagerly. If the Watcher noticed the look of disappointment on their faces at seeing him instead of their father, he didn’t show it or comment on it.

“Your father thought you might like a bit of company,” he said in way of greeting. “Perhaps a book?” he suggested, turning on the bedside lamp as he began to peruse the bookshelf for something suitable.

“Is Mommy okay?” William asked, watching Giles run a finger over the boy’s rather extensive, and impeccably organized, collection of books.

The Watcher stopped, looked over at the children, and gave them the most reassuring look he could conjure. “Your mother is the strongest person I know. I’m certain that she will be fine. She simply had a bit of a fright; she’s quite adept at dealing with such things. Your father was going to be with her to make sure all’s well. There’s nothing to worry about, I assure you.”

Giles selected a well-worn book from the top shelf, which turned out to be a Little Golden Book – The Star Wars Collection. He pulled up a child-sized chair from William’s desk, placing it near the bed and sat down on it with some difficulty, his knees nearly hitting his chest in the low seat.

“Daddy will help her,” Annie offered as Giles flipped the book open. “Right, Uncle Giles?”

The Watcher looked up and gave them a comforting smile. “Yes, your father is actually quite good at that, odd as that is to say. Your parents have a very special connection … one that still mystifies me, but is most assuredly real. Everything will be fine.”

“And the bad man won’t come back … right?” William asked in a small voice.

“No, son, I assure you he will not. The police have seen to that. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. Do you believe me?” Giles asked, looking between Annie and William.

William clutched the ring in his hand tightly, nodding solemnly, his curls dancing around his head with each movement.

Annie also nodded. “Daddy said so, too. He promised.”

Giles gave them another reassuring smile. “Have you ever known your father to lie?”

Annie shook her head negatively, but William screwed up his lips, pursing them and moving them back and forth in thought. “Wellll…” the boy drawled. “Not exactly … But we did get fries and chocolate shakes at McDonald’s when Mommy said not to go there, and he said not to tell.

“Have you ever dipped French fries in chocolate shakes? It’s better than ketchup!” William declared, his blue eyes suddenly dancing with the memory.

Giles smothered a laugh. “I see. Well, be that as it may, I’ve known your father a very long time, almost as long as your mother. While it’s true that he behaves as if he’s twelve at times, I assure you that when he makes a promise, he will do everything in his power to keep it. And there is nothing more important to him than keeping you, and your mother, safe, happy, and well supplied with chocolate.   

“Have you ever known him to break a promise?”

Both children shook their heads.

“Well, there you have it then. There is nothing whatsoever to worry about. Spike promised … as do I.

“Now then, where shall we begin?” Giles asked looking down at the book.

“The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite,” William told him, snuggling back down under the sheets next to his sister, the skull ring still clutched tightly in his small hand.

Giles flipped to the suggested saga in the collection and began, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank goodness for heroes of every kind!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! More to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	90. Kryptonite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has their own Kryptonite …

* * *

 

 

[SOUNDTRACK: Kryptonite, 3 Doors Down](https://youtu.be/mrh2-OPUhzU)

 

 

* * *

 

After leaving Giles to see to the children, Spike fairly flew the short distance back to the master suite and Buffy. He forced himself to stop, to calm his fear, before opening the door. Slamming through it in a mad rush would not do her rattled nerves any good.

She wasn’t in sight.

“Buffy!” he called, his voice on the verge of panic, as he hurried around the bed, searching for her. He glanced briefly into the dark master bath as he passed, then headed out onto the balcony, becoming more frantic with each passing moment.  A horrible thought flickered through his mind and he fearfully looked down from the railing to the terrace below. A wave of relief washed over him when all he saw below was the gently-lit swimming pool glimmering in the night. He chided himself for even entertaining such a thought, that she could’ve fallen – or jumped— but the raw fear he’d seen in her eyes had been like nothing he’d seen in them before.

He hurried back into the bedroom. This time he took more care in searching. Flipping on the light in the bathroom, he found her huddled in the furthest corner of the large walk-in shower, still fully clothed. She sat with her back against the cool, dry slate, her knees pulled up protectively against her chest. Her head was bowed, her forehead resting against her knees and her forearms wrapped over her ears, her hands clasped behind her head, as if physically holding herself together.

“Buffy,” Spike murmured gently, stepping behind the tempered glass wall to join her in the roomy, modern ‘shower-for-two’, as the realtor had described it. Spike thought it was more like a shower for three or four, depending on your predilections, but Buffy had always insisted that two in a shower was plenty.  Spike certainly wasn’t going to argue … much.

He crouched down in front of her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him then, her green eyes fearful, swollen, and rimmed in red. 

“Was … was Warren here?” she asked in a small, wavering voice.

Spike shook his head. “No, pet. Finn. Warren’s long dead.”

“Finn,” Buffy repeated as if trying to place the name, searching Spike’s face for a clue.

“Riley,” Spike provided. “Big. Ugly. Delusional. Sanctimonious,” he added when she still looked confused.

Buffy nodded slowly. “Riley Finn,” she confirmed, but still sounded unsure. “It couldn’t be Warren … right?”

“That’s right, pet.”

“Spike … I think I’m … something’s wrong with me,” Buffy admitted, rubbing tiredly at her swollen eyes with trembling fingers. “I _saw_ Warren. I _heard_ him, I … I _smelled_ that horrible cologne he wore! I felt him shoot me,” she admitted, touching a hand to her chest where she could still feel the pain of his bullet in her memory.  “Are you sure it wasn’t him?”

Spike nodded. “I’m sure. Ya had a flashback, luv,” Spike explained, still crouching back on his heels in front of her. “Xena said it’s bloody common in combat soldiers and such.”

“But I’m not … a soldier? Am I?” she asked, narrowing her eyes, trying to think. Everything seemed so muddled. She was losing her mind, seeing things that Spike said weren’t there – maybe she just couldn’t remember being a soldier.

Spike pulled his bottom lip between his teeth worriedly and shook his head. “Not officially. But getting shot and mostly-killed probably qualifies for that particular benefit, I reckon.”

Buffy drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, nodding, slightly relieved. “I guess,” she agreed grudgingly. “It just felt so real.”

“Apparently, they do. Like yer reliving it all over again. Like it’s happening right then,” Spike said, rubbing her shoulder gently. “Xena said you seemed frozen, like you weren’t seein’ Finn at all. She said that’s what can happen with it sometimes.”

“I froze,” Buffy whispered, her gaze locking with his. “I don’t freeze,” she insisted. “I … I’m the Slayer, I don’t …”

“You’re bloody human, pet,” Spike corrected her. “Slayer or not, getting shot t’ death is gonna leave an impression.”

“Jesus,” Buffy swore, looking down at her hands which had nearly stopped trembling. Hot, stinging tears welled anew in her eyes as she curled her hands into frustrated fists. “You could’ve been killed … I froze, and you could’ve been killed.”

“No one got killed, luv,” Spike assured her.

“But you could have been! Or … or Sam … or the kids!” she shot back. “And I froze! How is that possible?!?

“I got killed by The Master and I didn’t freeze up! I kicked his ugly ass! I … I jumped off Glory’s tower and died, but I flew around your soul, even did a great Icarus impersonation – I didn’t freeze up! What the hell?!”

Spike changed position, lowering himself down to sit next to her on the cool slate floor of their over-sized shower. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him, beneath the sheltering protection of his arm.

“I dunno, pet,” he murmured softly. “Maybe cos those others were supernatural … the Slayer handled it. Warren was a human … not much o’ one, to be sure, but technically human. Mortal with a gun … not in the Slayer wheelhouse. Just up to the human to handle it, yeah?”

“Well, this human apparently sucks, cos I didn’t handle that at all. Spike, you could’ve been killed! And I did _nothing_!”

“Reckon your human side is like the rest of us: just human. Did ya ever let the human deal with being shot … with dying, luv? Ever talk t’ anyone ‘bout it? Or did ya shove it all into one o’ your little gilded cages? Too worried about me, what I might be doing … what I _was_ doing? Slayer jumped up and ran off t’ see about the vampire. Did ya tell the human to sit down, shut up, and stop whinging so you could save everyone else?”

“I never really thought of it that way,” Buffy admitted with a sigh. “I just … did what I had to do. What my gut … my heart said to do.”

“What the Slayer instincts told you to do.” Spike squeezed her a little tighter, reassuring her. “Reckon the human’s been sitting there all this time waiting for a chance to have its say. Finn apparently shot the lock off that cage, let it out, eh?”

Buffy blew out a long breath, closing her eyes and leaning against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “I guess … maybe,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I turned into a supersized Freeze Pop and you could’ve been killed.”

“No one got killed,” he repeated firmly. “You can’t start beatin’ yourself up over something that _might’ve_ happened. It’s okay to not be the hero every bloody time,” he assured her. “Gotta leave a little glory for the rest of us mooks.”

Buffy snorted a soft laugh and shook her head. “God, it was so real,” she murmured, more to herself than him. “I was so afraid. Spike … I could feel myself dying again. I could feel the blood, smell it, taste it.”

“I’m sorry, pet. I’m sorry you went through that. Seems like once would’ve been one time too many,” Spike said, leaning over to touch a soft kiss against her temple. “If I could take it from you, lift it off yer heart, you know I would.”

Buffy nodded and tears welled in her eyes again, feeling the truth of his words like a tender, comforting blanket around her soul, easing her fears. “You’ve always been able to take my pain and make it bearable. How do you do that?”

“Ah, well, that’s easy, pet. I just loved you … still do, by the way,” he said softly.

“I sometimes think you might’ve been better off if you hadn’t loved me.”

“Oh, I’ve no bloody doubt about that, luv.”

“I love you too, jerk,” she muttered, slapping a hand lightly against his chest. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and the sight of it reached in and soothed Spike’s worried heart like a tender caress.

“Life is never boring with you, pet. I’ll give ya that. But, I wouldn’t trade this life with you for all the gold in King Solomon’s mines,” Spike admitted.

“Me either,” Buffy sighed. They sat in silence a few moments, nestled together on the cool, hard floor of the shower. Buffy drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting more of the tension go out of her body with it. She could feel Spike’s strength, his devotion, his love seep into her soul, helping her carry this burden just as he’d done so many times before.  She really did sometimes think he would’ve been better off if he’d never loved her, but she was grateful every day that he did.

They truly did fit together, filling in the painful cracks that life had cruelly carved from their souls. It was a lot like Giles had told her all those years ago – about love being a garden, taking work and tending. Every time something came along to rip a new gouge into either of their souls, they would both work on filling it back in with rich, fertile tenderness and plant it with the seeds of their love. They’d tend it with care and devotion until the wound healed and flowers emerged from the scorched path where the pain had been.

It wasn’t as hard as it had been at one time, their lives were not riddled with as many dangers now, but even small scratches can build up to painful wounds if they aren’t healed.  Spike could still reach into the garden of her soul and smooth the tattered and torn edges, and she could do the same for him. There was a bond between them. It had been forged in fire, strengthened with pain, honed with blood, and polished to a brilliant luster with the passage of time. Unbreakable. Unquestionable. Unassailable. 

After a few moments of silence, Buffy asked, “Did Sam say anything else? Will it come back again? How do I stop it?”

“Said she thought it was a very specific circumstance that triggered it in you. She thought maybe the gunshot – the sound and smell of it – mighta’ been what did it. You haven’t had it happen before, have ya?” Spike asked, pretty sure that he knew the answer, but thought he should make sure.

Buffy shook her head. “No, but … tonight, after you took the kids, there was a noise – loud – I don’t know what it was – it set it off again. Am I gonna freeze every time I hear a car backfire or a firecracker now?”

Spike hugged her tighter against his side. “I dunno, pet,” he admitted. “Sam said talkin’ about it to a therapist who knows about PTSD could help. Might want try that, eh?  We’ll figure it out, yeah? You and me. The Dynamic Duo. Nothing we can’t handle, is there?”

Buffy turned and lifted her eyes up to meet his. “I’m still Batman – you will forever be the sidekick.”

Spike smirked, further relived by her joke. “Does Batman typically hide in the bloody shower?”

Buffy shrugged, looking around. “It’s like a cave,” she pouted. “Covered in rock and big enough to park the Batmobile in.”

“Reckon that’s true,” Spike agreed as he started to rise. “Don’t know why we even have a bloody garage.”

He offered Buffy a hand and she stood up also, happy to see that her hands had stopped shaking. “I told you before: two in the shower is company, three’s a crowd. And the way you fuss and fret over that car, no way is she coming in the shower with us.”

Spike smiled at her. “As always, I defer to yer judgement on that, pet.”

“Damn right you do,” she continued, stepping past him and out of the cavernous shower. “I was supposed to get seniority after eight years … still waiting for _that_ to happen,” she asserted dryly, but Spike saw the small glimmer of teasing in her eyes as she went by.

“What can I say, luv? Can’t resist her sinister attraction. Tail fins are bloody sexy.”

Buffy snorted. “You do realize Faith thinks so, too.”

“No need t’ get nasty, pet,” Spike retorted, following her out of the shower.

Buffy turned back to face him, her smile fading back to neutrality, but at least the panic was gone from her eyes. “Are Annie and William okay? Should I go check on them?”

“They said t’ tell you they loved you,” Spike relayed. “I’ll go check on ‘em while you get yer shower, yeah?”

Buffy bit her bottom lip a moment. “I thought, maybe … two’s company?” she suggested tentatively.

Spike drew his brows together, his head tilted as he studied her, a bit confused. After all that had happened that night, she surely was not in any mood for …

“I just … I don’t want to be alone right now,” she clarified. “Could you wash my back? I’ll wash yours?”

Spike nodded, giving her a reassuring smile. “I’ll just pop out and make sure they’re asleep and be right back, quick like,” he told her, drawing her forward and touching a soft kiss to her troubled brow. “Get the water warm – be right back.”

Buffy nodded as he released her, but felt a bit of unease start to rise. ‘ _He’s just going down the hall, nothing’s going to happen, just calm down, you’re being ridiculous_ ,’ she told herself, turning around to start the water warming up as he headed out of the bathroom at a brisk walk.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike quietly opened the door to William’s room and stuck his head in, not wanting to disturb the bits if they were sleeping.

“Did you help Mommy? Is she okay?” William asked in a soft voice almost the moment the door cracked.

Spike pushed the door open further and stepped in. “Yeah, she’s gonna be fine, Junior. No worries,” Spike replied in the same low tone.  “You should be asleep though. Didn’t Rupert read ya a story?”

“Yeah, but Annie kicks and steals covers,” William complained, frowning.

“Takes after her mum, I reckon,” Spike revealed. “I’ll take her to her room, then?”

William nodded decisively.

Spike stepped around the narrow bed and slipped the warm, limp form of his daughter from beneath the covers, which she did seem to have the majority of.

“You gonna be alright, then?” Spike asked William quietly as he cradled Annie to his chest gently.

In answer, William opened his clenched fist and showed Spike the skull ring and then closed his hand tightly over it again.

Spike nodded understanding and headed for the door with the sleeping girl. “G’night, Junior.”

“G’night, Daddy. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Mini-Me.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike stepped into the steaming shower and touched a soft kiss on Buffy’s shoulder. She was facing away from him, leaning against the front wall, letting the steady downpour from the highest showerhead flow over her scalp and stream down her body, trying to wash the crazy away.

She turned and looked back over her shoulder, giving Spike a relieved smile. Her mind had started racing again while he’d been gone, running through all the most horrible scenarios her imagination could conjure. Dead bodies littered the beach in her mind – her friends and family – _her babies_ – their lifeless eyes stared up at her accusingly. It was her job to save them and she hadn’t. She could do nothing but stand, trembling and sobbing, and watch the destruction as their blood poured from bullet wounds and soaked into the sand, their lives draining away before her eyes. She felt helpless, and that was not a feeling Buffy had any experience with. It frightened her more than demons or hell gods or even delusional soldiers with guns. ‘Helpless’ and ‘Buffy’ were like vampires and tanning beds, un-mixy. 

“Good thing we have lots of hot water, or you’d be taking a cold one,” she told him, trying to sound relaxed and flippant even as her heart lurched painfully in her chest.

“Sorry, pet,” he apologized, plucking one of the mesh body-scrubber poofs from the basket on the wall and pumping a generous amount of liquid soap onto it. The fragrance of lavender and jasmine began to float on the warm steam in the shower, engulfing them in the sweet, calming aroma.

“Are the kids okay?” she asked, turning back toward the wall, trying to keep her focus on the here and now and away from the blood that soaked the sand in her imagination.

“Yeah. Just had to do a little sleeping arrangement adjustment. No worries,” he assured her as he began running the sudsy poof over her shoulders. The white suds were a sharp contrast to her sun-bronzed skin as they slowly slid down her back. The foam grew thinner as it glided over her curves, diluted by the shower of warm water, briefly blending in with the light skin of her ass before sluicing down her legs.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy murmured, her words nearly drowned out by the splattering water.

“Nothing to be sorry for, luv,” Spike assured her as he set the poof down and began massaging her shoulders and neck with strong hands. Her body was tight as a piano wire, tense and rigid under his touch. He dug his fingers and thumbs into the hard muscle making Buffy wince, but slowly relax, giving way to his insistent, comforting strength.

“I feel so … I don’t know, stupid … weak … delusional … ashamed,” she admitted, still facing away from him as he forcibly drove the tension from her body, letting the warm water wash the tears from her cheeks that had begun falling again.

Spike grasped her shoulders gently and turned her around to face him. The movement sent water splattering off in all directions, coating the bare skin of his chest and neck in a fine spray of warmth. His face was set in grim determination, his eyes earnest as he placed a finger beneath her chin to lift her eyes up to meet his.

“You are the strongest person I’ve ever known, Buffy. And I’ve known a fair number o’ strong people in my time.  Ya got nothing to be ashamed of. You aren’t bloody weak, you aren’t daft, and the only delusional bit is you thinking you are,” Spike assured her.

Buffy shook her head in denial, clamping her eyes closed against the shame that she felt – she didn’t want Spike to see her like this. Weak and helpless and …

“Hey, look at me,” Spike said firmly, shaking her shoulder gently, as if to wake her from a nightmare.

Buffy bit her bottom lip, her chin quivering with the emotions she was fighting to hold in, unable to open her eyes and see him looking at her. The crazy was about to escape. She’d snapped; it was gonna spill out all over and everyone would see … Spike would see. She wasn’t what he thought she was, she wasn’t strong. She wasn’t …

“Please, pet,” he whispered, his throat tightening with the pain of seeing her in pain. “I love you, Buffy. Nothing you could show me will ever make me stop loving you. There’s nothing t’ be ashamed of here, pet. I know you, I know your heart, I know your bloody soul. There’s nothing wrong with you; you aren’t weak. You aren’t helpless. Everyone has their kryptonite … even you, Supergirl.”

Buffy snorted and a sob shook her shoulders, but she forced her eyes open, her shimmering gaze meeting Spike’s and holding it with an effort of will. “So, Riley Finn is my kryptonite? That’s … depressing on so many levels.”

Spike shook his head and pulled her against him into a tight hug, the warm water of the shower raining down on them. “Dying is your kryptonite, pet.”

“You’d think I’d be used to it by now,” Buffy whispered against his warm, wet skin, wrapping her arms around his slim waist and holding on tight, lest she slip away.

“Not sure that’s something humans generally have a chance to build up an immunity to. And, sooner or later, even you have to accept that you are human under that Supergirl cape,” Spike pointed out gently.

Buffy snorted and pulled back to look up into his eyes again. “You don’t think I’m … turning into Dru? You know … sack of hammers and off my bird and … umm … losing the plot?”

“Not even close, pet,” Spike assured her. “Have I ever lied to you?” he asked, his blue gaze locked onto her shimmering green eyes.

Buffy’s brows drew together. “ _Ever_? Well … yeah, pretty sure…”

“Not talking about who ate the last o’ the Ben and Jerry’s,” Spike interrupted.

Buffy arched a brow at him. “You said it was Andrew …”

“Not the point,” Spike insisted hastily. “I know you. I know your soul. It’s the soul of a warrior. I know your heart. It’s the heart of a lion. I know your mind. It’s the mind of a bloody rebel.”

“I think that makes me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.”

Spike gave her an impatient look, his hair curling around his face from the steam and spray of the shower. “It makes you _Buffy_. It makes you the woman I love. It makes you someone who bends but never breaks, and who always comes up fightin’. We’ll get through this, pet. Together. I bloody promise you. Just like we have everything else.”

Buffy swallowed hard and nodded, leaning back into him as the warm water continued to rain down from above. “I love you, Spike,” she murmured against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her in a tender hug.

“I love you too, Buffy. You’ll always be my heart, luv. My very soul is yours.”

“That, apparently, doesn’t stop you from eating the last of the ice cream,” she observed, clasping her hands around his lean waist and leaning against him heavily, letting him ease some of the burden from her soul that had built up again.

Spike snorted softly and touched a kiss atop her head. “May not be a vampire, but I’m far from being a saint, pet.”

Buffy smiled against his chest and sighed, feeling her calm returning again in his loving embrace. “Thank goodness for that. Otherwise, what would we do with that bottle of honey on the nightstand?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! More to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	91. I Found It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy continues to struggle to get a handle on her PTSD with Spike’s help, while assuring their kids that everything is okay. More re-wedding guests arrive for the celebration.

__

* * *

 

_Buffy stood frozen on the shore, watching helplessly as her friends and family were pulled out to sea. They were screaming at her to help them, to save them – her children calling desperately for their ‘Mommy!!’ as Spike cried her name, reaching back for her. The waves lapped at her ankles like shackles, holding her in place as she reached out for Spike, for her babies, for Giles and Willow, for Tara and Daniel, for Oz and Xander, for Sam and Anya – but they were too far away. She screamed in fear, tears of frustration streaming down her face, desperate to reach them. But it was no use. She could only watch in horror as they all were swept away, dragged beneath the churning sea, still calling for her to help them with their last, desperate breaths. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t go to them. Couldn’t help._

_She fell to her knees in the surf, screaming in pain and frustration as their voices echoed in her mind, drowning her in grief and shame and utter, horrific helplessness. In the next moment a massive wave crashed down on her, pulling her under with them, suffocating her with guilt._

Buffy jerked awake, gasping for air, certain she was drowning, that her family and friends had drowned, that she had not been able to save them. She sat bolt upright in the bed, hyperventilating, unable to get enough oxygen into her lungs. Then she realized that it had been a dream … a nightmare, and she began to sob, still gasping for air.

“Buffy?” Spike’s groggy voice rasped in the darkness, feeling her move, hearing her gasping breaths. “You alright, luv?”

“No … yes…” she cried between shuddering gasps and sobs. She had no idea. Her heart pounded in her chest, thudding in her ears like a hundred galloping horses, her skin was flushed and clammy, she couldn’t stop crying, and she still couldn’t breathe properly.

Spike sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. “What is it, pet?”

Buffy shook her head, still breathing too quickly and too shallowly. She noticed then that her hands were trembling, and she was shivering with fear.

“Buffy,” he soothed softly, pulling her into his embrace. “What’s happened? Nightmare?”

Buffy tried to melt into him, to just disappear into his love, into his heart, as she struggled to answer, but she had no air to form the words.

“Take a deep breath and hold it a mo’,” Spike advised her.

“Can’t…”

“You can, pet. Just slow down, hold it and let it out slow-like. You remember how ya showed me that time when Annie fell off the climbing frame an’ was bleeding t’ death? Deep breath, now… hold it …”

Buffy tried. And failed. And tried again. And failed. Sobs shook her shoulders and she concentrated on trying to stop those first. Everything was alright. Everyone was alright. She hadn’t failed them … _again_.

Spike cooed gently against her ear, stroking a hand softly down her back, comforting, encouraging, assuring her.  Finally, she was able to quiet her tears, slow her breathing down, and take some deeper breaths.

“Annie … wasn’t … bleeding to … death,” she gasped out, still pressed against Spike’s chest, trying to get the fear shivering through her to abate.

“Looked like she was t’ me,” Spike countered. “Blood all down her face, in her hair, coverin’ her clothes. Never seen so much blood!”

Buffy snorted against him and finally took the deepest breath yet, held it a few seconds, and then let it out in a sigh. “You were a vampire for how long? And _that’s_ the most blood you ever saw?”

Spike sniffed defensively. “Well … looks like more on yer own bit,” he excused. “Better, luv?” he asked softly, still holding her tightly in his arms.

She nodded against his chest and let out another deep sigh. “I don’t know how to do this, Spike. I don’t know how to … feel like this.”

“Be alright, pet. We’ll see ‘bout that doc Xena was talkin’ about, yeah?” he suggested.

Buffy nodded again and finally sat back away from him with another deep intake of air.

“We can postpone the—” Spike began.

“No! Damn it!” Buffy barked in frustration. “I utterly refuse to let him win this! I’ll … I’ll be okay. It was just a nightmare… I’m okay,” she assured Spike, looking up to meet his eyes.

She looked exhausted. Dark circles hung dourly under her red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. It made his heart ache to see her so haunted. But there was determination in them, too – stubborn determination shining from her soul. No matter what, she would fight against the darkness – and he’d do his best to help her win that fight.

Spike nodded before reaching over to turn the light back off. They settled back down in the dark, Buffy curled against his side, her head on his shoulder, one leg draped over his. He wrapped an arm around her and held her there, listening to her breathing slowly return to normal.

Spike began to hum and then sing to her softly, his voice a deep, soothing balm in the dark. It was an old Keb’ Mo song, one that he would sometimes sing to the kids to get them to sleep or when they were sick or crying.

Buffy took another deep, cleansing breath as he began to sing, and let it out in a gentle sigh. A vision of Spike holding a fussy, colicky six-month-old William in his arms, rocking the baby gently and singing softly, trying to comfort his son, came to her mind. A fresh wave of tears welled in her eyes, but these were tears of joy, of love, of solace. 

A small smile curved the corners of her mouth as she sighed again and began to relax against him, the rumble of his voice flowing over her and easing her jumbled mind and tense body.    

{[Lullaby Baby Blues -- Performed by James Marsters ](https://youtu.be/Oe1UbWPWIdc)\-- _worth the watch!_ }

 

_Goodnight baby blues_  
 _Close your eyes, baby blues_  
 _The moonlit sky watches over you_  
 _So close your eyes, baby blues_  


_Hush now no need to talk_  
 _Hear the ticking of the clock_  
 _Stars that twinkle, stars that shine_  
 _Dream and you'll have wings to fly_  
  
_Goodnight baby blues_  
 _Close your eyes baby blues_  
 _The moonlit sky watches over you_  
 _So close your eyes, baby blues_

His voice trailed off as he felt her relax and her breathing become slow and steady as she fell back into hopefully nightmare-free slumber.

“Love you, Buffy,” he whispered into the dark, touching a kiss down atop her head. “Sleep well, my love.”

  **** X-X-X-X-X ****

The door to Buffy and Spike’s bedroom cracked open and a small, blond head poked in. Wary blue eyes searched the room in the dim, greenish glow of the electronic lights from the clock and nightlight.  It was early – or really late, depending on how you looked at it – still an hour or two before sunrise.

Buffy blinked her eyes open, sensing the presence or perhaps registering the small click of the doorknob when it turned – call it a mother’s sixth sense.  She was facing the door, lying on her side with Spike curled against her back, still sleeping.

“Hey, little man,” she whispered in a sleep and tear roughened voice. “What are you doing up?”

William opened the door further and stepped in, moving up to the bed. “I was worried. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, baby,” Buffy assured him, patting the bed in front of her, inviting him up.

William scrambled up onto the tall bed, burrowed under the light covers, and snuggled up against the cottony-soft unicorn pajamas that the kids had given her for Mother’s Day. They’d given Spike some nightmarish flashbacks of Harmony, but Buffy liked them and they were comfy, so they stayed. Buffy wrapped an arm around her son and touched a gentle kiss to his scalp through his riot of white-blond curls, breathing in the scent of him – young and innocent.

“Daddy said you were scared,” William revealed. “I was scared, too.”

“I’m sorry, sweet boy. I’m sorry that man scared you,” Buffy continued in a whisper trying not to wake Spike.

“I don’t like him,” the boy pouted.

Buffy blew out a soft snort. “Well, that makes it unanimous then.”

“Who was he? Why was he mad at us?”

Buffy bit her bottom lip, running a hand gently down her son’s back, trying to comfort him and figure out how much to tell him. She generally didn’t like to lie to the kids, but some things were just more than they could handle.

“Well, he’s Sam’s ex-husband, and … and I dated him a long time ago, too. He was mad because he thought things we’d done had messed up his life,” Buffy explained.

“What does ‘dated’ mean?” William asked.

“Umm … dated … like, he was my boyfriend. You know what that means,” Buffy answered.

“But … Daddy’s your boyfriend,” William pointed out, lifting his face up to look at her in the low light, his expression confused.

“Well, Daddy wasn’t _always_ my boyfriend.”

William’s face screwed up even more. “What do you mean?”

Buffy sighed. How do you explain to kids that life didn’t just start the day they were born? “Your dad and I weren’t always together, baby. Hard as this may be to believe, we weren’t _born_ married. We did have separate lives before we met each other. I had boyfriends before your dad, and he had girlfriends before me.”

The boy’s eyes went wide. “Do you think they have guns, too?”

“Oh, no, baby, no,” Buffy assured him, pulling him into a tighter hug. “No, this man is just …” Buffy sighed, not sure what to even say for a moment. “He’s just hurting and he thinks it’s our fault. But it’s okay now, because the police took him away, so he won’t bother us again.”

“So, you’re not scared anymore?” William asked.

“No, I’m not scared, and you don’t have to be either,” Buffy replied, despite her dislike of lying to the children.

“William, what’s in your hand?” she asked after moment, noticing his curled fist.

“Nothin’,” he replied, squeezing his hand closed even tighter.

“William,” Buffy drawled warningly.

“I didn’t take it. Daddy gave it to me,” he blurted out, but didn’t open his hand.

“Okaaay … show me what it is,” Buffy requested, squinting in the dim light.

William sighed heavily, but opened his hand to reveal the skull ring.

Buffy’s mouth opened and closed in surprise. She released the hug on her son and lifted Spike’s left hand from where it lay across her, staring at it in disbelief. Sure enough, the ring was gone. She’d never seen him take it off in a decade, not for _anything_. _Wow_.

“Why did he give it to you?” she asked as the boy clamped his hand shut over it again.

“Cos it has all your love in it and then I could be brave,” the boy answered in a small voice.

“Oh, honey,” Buffy murmured, pulling him back into a tighter hug. “You always have all my love with you. It’s inside you, part of you – always and forever.”

“But I’m not brave,” he whispered.

“Just because you’re scared doesn’t mean you aren’t brave,” Buffy assured him. “Being afraid of dangerous things is smart.

“I’ll tell you a secret: your dad was just like you when he was young. He was very smart – just like you – but he thought he wasn’t brave,” Buffy revealed, making William pull back to look up at her.

“Nuh-uh,” he refuted.

“Cross my heart,” Buffy pledged. “But it turns out, deep down, he really was very brave. In fact, he’s probably the bravest person I know. Do you know where he found his courage?”

The boy shook his head, his eyes wide with wonder.

“In his heart. Right here,” she told him, touching a hand down to the boy’s chest. “It was inside him all along, just like it’s inside you. You just have to believe, William. You’re just like your dad, you’re just as brave.”

“Really?” he asked hopefully.

“Really,” Buffy assured him. “It’s inside you. I promise.”

William uncurled his fist and lifted the ring up to her. Buffy gave him a reassuring smile and took it from him. She lifted Spike’s hand and slid it back onto his finger, having to push a tad harder to get it over his knuckle than she had the first time she’d put it on him a decade ago. Spike stirred a bit in his sleep as she forced it back into place, but then settled again, his hand curling into a loose fist as she rested it back down onto her hip.

“Mommy? Are you okay?” another tentative voice came from the partially opened door.

Buffy looked up at her daughter, dark hair matted and tousled. Even in the dim light Buffy thought the girl’s green eyes looked a little bit older, a bit more wary, than they had just the day before. 

“Everything’s fine, Annie,” Buffy assured her, patting a hand down on the other side of William in invitation. 

The girl climbed in, sliding under the light coverlet next to her brother.

“Your dad said you were very brave last night,” Buffy told the girl, reaching a hand over William to touch her daughter’s shoulder. “Thank you for helping your brother when he needed it … and me.”

The girl smiled and nodded. “Is everything going to be okay now?”

“Yes, sweetie, everything will be fine,” Buffy assured her. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Good, cos I don’t know if I can be brave again,” she admitted.

“You don’t have to be,” William announced. “Mommy said I’ve got brave in here, just like Daddy,” he continued, pointing at his chest.

Buffy smiled and ruffled her son’s wild hair. “You’ve both got lots of brave inside. I’m really proud of both of you,” she gushed, looking from William to Annie. “And ya know what would make me even prouder?”

“What?” Annie asked expectantly.

“If we could go back to sleep for another hour or three so I don’t look like a zombie at my re-wedding later.”

“You don’t look like a zombie!” William assured her. “None of your skin is falling off, you still have all your hair, and your eyes aren’t all googly. Plus, you can talk. Zombies can’t talk.”

“Oh, well, thank goodness for small favors,” Buffy laughed, adjusting her pillow and settling back down onto it. “Still … a little nap wouldn’t hurt. Wouldn’t want your dad to faint or run away screaming at the sight of sleep-deprived bride, would we?”

William and Annie both laughed and snuggled down into the soft mattress, letting their eyes fall closed in the safety of their parents’ big bed.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike’s lips nuzzled Buffy’s neck as the soft light of dawn began to trickle into their room. Her skin was warm and soft, her hair a riot of golden silk against his face as he burrowed deeper, kissing and nibbling softly against her skin.

Buffy moaned sleepily and pressed her hips back, an involuntary reaction to the tingling pleasure of his mouth against her skin. Spike’s hand slipped beneath the covers and under her cottony pajama top, his fingertips brushing gently over one nipple, bringing it to full wakefulness in a moment.

Buffy stirred, sighing in pleasure, coming a bit more awake with each caress and warm, wet kiss against her neck. After a moment she reached up and clamped her hand over Spike’s, trapping it against her breast as she said warningly, “William.” 

“Buffy,” Spike replied breathlessly, trying to pull his hand from her grasp as his hips began to grind against hers in a slow, sensuous movement.

“No, Spike … _William_ _and Annie_ ,” Buffy clarified, pulling his hand out of her shirt and placing in on their son’s mane of riotous curls.

Spike’s eyes flashed open and he lifted up, looking over her. “Oh, bloody hell,” he moaned, sinking back down into the pillow in frustration.

“They were worried and still scared,” Buffy explained, turning over to face her husband while trying not to wake the two sleeping children on her other side.

Spike sighed and wrapped her in a hug, tucking her head beneath his chin as he looked at their two sleeping children. “What about you?”

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, snuggling against him a little closer. “I’m … I think I’m okay. As long as I don’t think about it too much.”

“No more dreams?” Spike asked.

“No.” Buffy shook her head. “None that I remember, at least.”

Spike growled. “I should’a killed the bloody wanker—”

“No, Spike,” Buffy stopped him. “He’s not worth sacrificing more pieces of our souls for.”

“Would’a been justified,” he argued.

“I know, legally it probably would’ve been, but … would you really want Annie and William to see that? It would’ve changed them … forever,” Buffy pointed out. “You’re their hero, Spike … I’m not sure watching you beat someone to death or break his neck or …” Buffy cleared her throat, recomposing herself. “I don’t think they needed to see you do that – or anyone do that, for that matter.”

Spike sighed, letting his eyes settle on the two sleeping forms behind Buffy. His heart ached knowing that she was right, but at the same time wishing he’d removed the threat once and for all. “Would do anything to protect you, to protect them. You know that, Buffy.”

“I know, baby. Trust me, I know. But Riley Finn isn’t worth the cost. We’re all okay, I promise,” Buffy assured him.  “Let’s not talk about it anymore today, please? Today I’m gonna marry you again. And Riley ‘the asshat’ Finn, is _not_ invited in any way, shape, form, or fashion. I refuse to let him ruin it. I don’t want to think about anyone but you.”

Spike touched a soft kiss to her forehead and hugged her tighter. “I love you, future Mrs. Pratt,” he whispered, tucking her head beneath his chin again.

Buffy smiled against his chest and sighed. “I love you too, former Mr. Summers.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike sauntered downstairs in just his PJ bottoms a while later, leaving his family to sleep a bit longer in the big bed of the master suite. No one else seemed to be up yet. After the long, stressful night they’d had dealing with Riley Finn and the police, it was no wonder. He’d just finished adding half a pound of sugar to his cup of coffee when he heard someone banging on one of the French doors that led out to the veranda.

Spike furrowed his brow, his mind immediately considering the possibility that Finn had somehow escaped and returned. He shook it off a moment later – if that were the case, the wanker wouldn’t be knocking on the door.  He took his mug of coffee-flavored syrup and headed back into the great room where they’d had dinner the night before to see who had locked themselves out of the house.

A slow, mischievous grin spread over his face at the sight that greeted him. The door wasn’t locked, in fact, it was open, the cool morning breeze drifting in.

“Spike,” Angel spat, leaning against the invisible barrier on the threshold. “Let me in.”

Spike leaned casually against the arm of a couch that had been shoved against one wall, and took a sip of his coffee, smirking at his grandsire over the rim. “Lovely mornin’, innit?”

“Where’s Buffy?” Angel demanded, glowering at the blond.

Spike shrugged. “Sleepin’, I reckon. Probably won’t be up for a bit.”

“Invite me in, you prophecy-stealing psychopath,” the dark vampire demanded again.

“Someone wasn’t worthy,” Spike retorted in a mocking, singsong voice before taking another sip of sugar-laden coffee.

“Oh, please! Like you’re something special!” Angel growled. “I’ve been making amends for decades! That prophecy was rightfully mine! You just got lucky.”

Spike curled his tongue over his teeth in a gesture of pure satisfaction. “Keep gettin’ lucky every night, too. So lucky it makes me feel _perfectly happy_. Ya know that feelin’, do ya? Oh, sorry, mate.  Haven’t had that pleasure in a good long time, then, I reckon. Must suck t’ be you.”

Angel glared at him over the short distance between the door and where Spike leaned against the couch sipping his coffee. “The sun’s up!” Angel informed him angrily.

“Is it?” Spike asked innocently, shifting his gaze up toward the sky outside the tall windows. “Well then, I’m late for my run, I reckon. Like t’ join me? A nice run along the beach in the sun? Bloody good for the soul, that is.”

“Spiiike,” Angel snarled. “Stop being an ass and just invite me in before I call Faith and have her beat your ass.” He dug into the pocket of his coat, pulled out a cell phone and started tapping on the screen.

“For the record, your little tart couldn’t beat my arse if I had one hand tied behind my back. Do I need t’ remind you, I did kill her once – be chuffed t’ do it again. Gotta say, she’s good at _fondlin’_ my arse, though.  She’s clearly not bein’ properly seen to. Could give ya some pointers on that, mate. You know, one vampire to another…

“Oh! What I am I sayin’? I’m not a bloody vampire, am I? All Shanshued into a real boy,” Spike taunted.

“Spike,” Angel sneered. “Let. Me. In.”

“Or what? You’ll dust? Oh, dear me, whatever shall I do?” Spike continued in mock concern. “Good thing Buffy’s got a properly sturdy Hoover, innit? Wouldn’t want the guests trackin’ Angel dust all over the carpet, would we?”

“Spike, I swear, when I get my hands on you—” Angel growled, leaning hard against the invisible barrier that held him out.

“Come in, Angel. I invite you,” Buffy said as she started down the stairs.

The barrier that had been holding the large vampire back dropped and Angel fell into the room, stumbling forward before catching himself on one of the dining tables. He looked up and glared at Spike with dark, contemptuous eyes. 

Spike sighed and rolled his eyes as he stood up and turned to look at her. “Party pooper,” he moaned. “He wasn’t even smoldering yet. That’s no bloody fun at all.”

“That’s me, the pooper of the party,” Buffy agreed as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “ _Someone_ has to be the adult in this house.”

“Pffffft!” Spike objected. “I’m a bloody adult. More adult than you are by more than a century, I might add.”

“Spike, you’re more like an adult _cat_. You can sorta make it on your own, but you do better with constant supervision. Someone has to keep you from eating lizards and puking on the carpet,” Buffy informed him, walking over to Angel.

“Are you okay?” she asked the vampire, looking him over for scorches.

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Just, you know, annoyed and exasperated by your house cat.”

Buffy laughed. “Well, he is annoying, but he’s just so cute that it’s hard to stay mad at him for too long.”

Spike walked up next to his wife, scowling. “OI! How many times do I have t’ tell you? Not bloody _cute_!”

Buffy gave Angel a conspiratorial look and shrugged. “Don’t you think he’s cute?”

Angel snorted and looked at Spike. “Cute as a snot demon with hay fever,” the vamp agreed, smirking.

“That’s it! You can bloody forget those pointers now, ya twit!” Spike retorted, turning and heading for the stairs.

Buffy laughed, pulling her robe around herself a little tighter as she started walking toward the kitchen, following the aroma of coffee. “So, how are you really?”

“I feel like I should be asking you that,” Angel replied, following her.

“Why should you be asking me that?” she wondered, hoping it wasn’t because she looked like a zombie, as she retrieved her coffee mug from the dishwasher.

“When Sam came down to open the door and let Wes in earlier, she told us about Finn,” Angel said, shaking his head as she silently held up a mug toward him. “I never liked that guy! I should’ve killed him a long time ago when I had the chance.”

Buffy sighed as she started pouring the coffee. “You never liked Spike, either.”

“Of course not! He’s _Spike_!” the vamp agreed, scowling.  “I should’ve killed _him_ a long time ago, too,” he grumbled, mostly to himself.

Buffy smiled and turned around to face him, holding her mug in both hands and leaning back on the counter. “In other words, anyone I’m with who is not you should be killed.”

Angel rolled his eyes and sighed. “Buffy, I … I know we can’t, but … damn it! If you had only let _me_ wear that amulet …”

“Angel, I married Spike before he … transformed. It doesn’t have anything to do with that. Even if you’d worn it and you weren’t a vampire with a cursed soul, it wouldn’t have changed anything.  I love him. He may act like a smartass twelve-year-old around you, but that’s not all that he is,” Buffy said. “I’m sorry. I loved you … God, I loved you with all my heart, but you left. You gave up on—”

“I left because I loved you, it was the right thing to do!” he argued. “I left so you could find something better!”

Buffy nodded and took a sip of her coffee before speaking. After a moment she looked up and met his dark, imploring eyes.  “Thank you. I found it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like having Buffy do a 'mic drop' at the end there. 
> 
> If you didn't listen to James Marsters singing that lullaby, which he used to sing to his son at bedtime, go back and listen. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're liking the story, I'd seriously love to hear from you! More to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	92. Rebel, Rebel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why be a rebel when you can be an anarchist?

* * *

 

Buffy came back into their bedroom a while later, her second cup of coffee in hand. The bed was empty; Spike must’ve found a way to herd the kids back to their own rooms. Just to make sure, Buffy slid the bolt on the door, precluding uninvited guests or at least making them knock first.

She smiled seeing Spike out on the balcony, leaning on the railing, his back to her. He was still in his PJ bottoms, the late-morning sun shining down, caressing his strong, tanned and freckled shoulders. He had his face lifted up to the warmth of the once-deadly rays of sunshine, she knew his eyes were closed even though she couldn’t see them. 

She remembered the very first time she’d seen him step out into the sun not long after they’d both finally awoken from the magical oblivion they’d been hurled into in the Hellmouth.  He’d done exactly the same thing then. That day was cold, but clear and bright. Neither of them were 100% sure what would happen, despite Sam and Giles both attesting to the fact that Spike was no longer a vampire and Spike being unable to bring up his game face. He’d gone cautiously, testing the theory with a hand first before removing his duster and slowly extending a bare arm out into the bright winter light.

Buffy felt a warm, fuzzy sensation stir in her chest now remembering the look of awe and wonder on his expressive face as he stepped out into the light for the first time in over a century – well, not counting the couple of short excursions using magical means.  He’d begun laughing, one of those deep, infectious, joyous laughs of his. It was impossible to not laugh with him, and cry with him, and rejoice with him. And they did all that on the back lawn of the coven – laughed and cried and hugged and kissed – all under the bright December sun.

Still smiling from the memory, Buffy walked up behind her husband, setting her coffee down next to his on the glass-topped table on the balcony before wrapping her arms around him. She leaned against his back, settling her cheek against his strong, warm shoulder.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she whispered as he laid a strong hand over hers where they clasped around his waist.

She felt, more than heard, Spike’s soft snort. “Reckon most people would say you’d be overpayin’ for that, luv.”

“Yeah? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been cheated,” Buffy teased, stepping back a little as Spike turned in her arms. “Remember that time we were in New York and I bought that fake Rolex from that street guy for $15?”

“And I got one from the next guy for $5?” Spike finished. “You’re a bloody chump. Ya didn’t even dicker with the bloke!”

Buffy laughed and leaned back into him, resting her head on his chest as his arms wrapped around her gently. “So, you’re saying I should go for … half a penny? Is that a thing? Like, can you cut a penny in half and would it be worth half a penny, or would it just be, you know, a penny cut in half? And, just what, other than your thoughts, could I spend it on? Cos … nothing costs half a penny! Even Penny Candies cost, like, a quarter now! So, maybe I should really pay you a quarter for your thoughts, you know, with inflation and all.”

Spike chuckled lightly and touched a kiss to the top of her head. “Your mind is a scary place, pet.”

Buffy laughed. “You _just now_ figured that out? Wow … you weren’t wrong about me overpaying for your thoughts, then, were you?

“Okay … half a penny for your thoughts,” she countered.

Spike laughed again. “Fair enough, then. Was just thinkin’ how beautiful you’re gonna look walking down that aisle later, pet. Can’t wait t’ marry you again.”

Buffy pouted, pulling back and looking up at him. “So, you’re saying I don’t look beautiful now…”

Spike shrugged nonchalantly, mischief glittering in his eyes. “Well, your hair could use a brush and a spot o’ makeup to cover those lines wouldn’t go amiss and …”

Buffy slapped his chest lightly. “Well, you could use a shave, mister, and your hair looks like a rat’s taken up residence in the curls, and you have a few lines yourself.”

Spike gazed down at her, biting his bottom lip to keep from grinning. “Your fault, that is,” he informed her. “Rupert says you did this t’ me, not the angel or that Shanshu gibberish.”

Buffy’s brows went up. “Oh yeah? How does he figure that?”

“Says you love me so much that ya mojoed me back t’ life.”

Buffy blew out a derisive puff of breath. “ _Pffft_. _Love you_? What a crock,” she contended. “I only put up with you for the sake of the children. _Love you_ … geez, I think he’s losing it. He is getting up there, ya know? I think his brain is addled from getting hit over the head so much when he was younger.”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” Spike countered, grinning. “You love me … admit it.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You. Love. Me,” Spike repeated, lowering his lips down to nuzzle the side of her neck, kissing and nibbling at her tender skin.

Buffy leaned her head to the side and moaned lightly. “Well … that’s pretty nice.”

“You love me … say it, Slayer,” Spike continued as his hands slid beneath her loose top and began roaming over her soft, warm skin.

“I wouldn’t … go … that … far,” she continued to object, her words becoming more breathless as his fingers began teasing her breasts, slowly closing in on her hardening nipples.

“You love me,” Spike said again as he began walking her backwards off the balcony and toward the bed.

“I … _like you_ … kinda,” she admitted, backing up willingly as her hands roamed up to his strong shoulders, enjoying the journey over hard muscle and soft skin.

“You love me, say it,” he repeated, stopping just short of the bed to slip her top up over her head. He dropped the colorful unicorn print on the floor then let his hands slide down her sides, over the curve of her breasts and narrow waist, then beneath the elastic of her bottoms. His warm, strong hands followed the path of the pajamas down her shapely legs until they fell in a puddle around her feet.

“I mean … you’re _okay_ ,” Buffy replied, stepping out of the pile of fabric before repeating the same procedure on Spike. Her hands glided down his sides, starting at his shoulders, over hills and valleys of muscle until they reached the silky blue fabric of his sleepwear. 

“There are parts of you that are exceptional,” she admitted, slipping her fingers under the fabric and pressing it down, releasing what was arguably his most exceptional part from the straining silk.

“And you love me,” he continued, pressing her back onto the bed as he stepped free of the blue silk still clinging to his bare feet.

She bit her bottom lip coyly, sliding back on the bed far enough to give him room to join her. He crawled on all fours up over her, graceful as a panther stalking his prey. Their eyes locked and held as he moved, and fires that had been smoldering within them both suddenly ignited into roaring flames. 

Their bodies aligned as if controlled by one mind. Hungry lips met, at once demanding and giving, devouring and surrendering, familiar but still electrifying, entrancing, enthralling.

Buffy’s legs wrapped around his slim hips, her heels pressing gently against his vampire-white ass as her arms wrapped around his neck. Spike pressed forward, his hardness slipping into her wet, tight quim, opening her to his girth, filling her with his desire.

Buffy gasped against his lips, her body arching beneath him in the pleasure of that first moment of joining. She blinked her eyes open and looked up at him, her body quivering with need, with a fire that never seemed to be completely quenched.

“I love you,” she whispered, cupping his cheek gently in her palm. “I’ll always love you.”

Spike’s teeth closed over his bottom lip as his heart skipped and skittered in his chest. His blue eyes filled with a flood of tender love and a flame of burning lust. He gazed into her eyes for a long moment, drowning in everything that she was, everything that she meant to him, everything that she had given him.

“I love you, too,” he rasped back, his throat tight with emotion as he pressed deeper into her welcoming channel, becoming one with her again, enveloped in not just her body, but her heart, her soul, her passion, her everything.

Buffy melted beneath him as he slid his yearning hardness deep into her body, filling her, his warmth enveloping her, the pleasure of him prickling her skin with wave after wave of soft, sensuous bliss.

“Hold me,” she whispered into the suddenly warm, thick air as Spike’s hips met hers, his hardness buried within her slick, supple sheath.

Spike dropped down to his elbows then settled his hard body atop her supple form, slipping his arms beneath her shoulders and wrapping her within a cocoon of love. He rested his head down on the pillow next to hers, his ragged breath a warm tickle against her ear.

Buffy wrapped her arms around his back, tightened her legs around his hips and closed her eyes, feeling loved, desired, adored, and completely safe. She breathed in the scent of him, his earthy tang with an undertone of the lavender soap from their shower and a hint of coffee. She took in deep breaths as they stayed there, joined, unmoving, unhurried, lost in the feeling that never grew old. How many times had they held each other just like this over the last decade? And how easily could this moment have been taken from either one of them with one bullet last night?

“I’m here, Buffy,” Spike rasped in a low whisper against her ear. “I’ll not leave you, pet. I bloody swear it.”

Buffy blinked her eyes rapidly, but the tears escaped her will to keep them back. “I fucking hate Riley Finn.”

Spike snorted softly as he lifted up to look into her glistening eyes. “Reckon we’d established that back in the motherland, pet, when ya dropped him on his ass.” He kissed the tears from her cheeks then, his lips soft against her skin, a gentle balm to her heart.

Buffy huffed out a breath and swallowed back the flood that was threatening to erupt from her heart. “I should’ve knocked his fucking head off his shoulders right there,” she contended. “He sooo deserved it!”

Spike smirked down at her. The panic and fear she’d been feeling last night seemed to be morphing into anger. That could only be a good sign. Buffy and ‘helpless fear’ were not on speaking terms; Buffy and anger were old friends – BFFs even.

“Got no argument from me, pet … except that all those Army brats that were hanging about might’ve been forced into action if you’d actually sent his big, empty head rolling out across the lawn,” he pointed out.

Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed. “Might’ve been worth it,” she grumbled, even knowing that Spike was right.  “Stupid Angel could’ve killed him back in Sunnydale and saved me the trouble. He and Riley got in a fight when I was still in college. Did you know?”

Spike’s brows went up. He didn’t know. “Another in the long list o’ reasons Angel’s a worthless git. Let’s get ‘im alone and have a proper punch-up later. Make ya feel better, it would. Know I’d feel better. There could be stakes involved.”

Buffy snorted, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, her eyes locking onto Spike’s. “I love you.”  

“’Course you do, cos I’m not a worthless git,” Spike agreed heartily, giving her a smug smile.

“No, you aren’t,” she agreed, but there was no teasing in her tone, it was solemn and serious like the look in her eyes. She slid one hand down off his shoulder and touched her palm gently to his cheek, her eyes never leaving his. “You’re the one who could always take the pain away … always push back the darkness.”

Spike let his smile fade as he leaned into her touch. His eyes fell closed and he let himself get lost in the feel of her hand against his cheek, in the way her body fit against his, her soft curves molding to his hard lines, the way her chest rose and fell in time with his, the way her supple sheath clung to his hardness as if never wanting to let him go.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her, the mingling hints of her shampoo and the lavender soap and coffee and … had she had chocolate this morning? But under it all was the essence of his Slayer, his lover, his wife, his friend, his heart that had always been there: sunbeams and seashells and summer days wrapped in raw silk, a warmth so deep that it threatened to dust him as a vampire. Now was no different, her sun-bright heat still burned him in the most delicious way, right to his very soul.

He blinked his eyes open as his hips began to move gently against her, slowly drawing his cock from her clutching body, then pressing back in. His eyes softened, his expression tender as he looked into her eyes, his voice the gentle lilt of his long ago past. “I shall always be here for you, Buffy. Give me your pain, my love … give me your darkness. I will gladly harbor them, keep them from your heart.”

Buffy smiled softly, biting her bottom lip as she slipped her hand behind his neck and pulled his lips down to hers. “Can we still beat up Angel later?” she wondered, his lips barely brushing hers as she spoke.

“Of course – your heart’s desire is my command,” he assured her, dropping his lips to cover her mouth in a slow, languid kiss.  

Buffy moaned against his mouth, her hips moving to match Spike’s slow dance, rising to meet him then pulling back just until his glans began to stretch her opening but not escape, then joining again. Her body tingled with the gentle coupling, her heart thudding in her ears as their lips parted momentarily before resuming with nibbles and licks and gentle sucks of warm, wet flesh.

She could feel every ridge, every throbbing vein of his cock tugging on her sensitive opening as they moved together and slipped apart, pulling, pressing, drawing away, falling together. Hot waves of pleasure flowed over her, starting in her center where he filled her and racing out, down her legs to the tips of her toes, up her torso to the very top of her head, tingling her scalp. Every deliberate press and pull of their hips sent another surge and swell of yearning need and bliss racing through her.

“More…” Buffy rasped against his lips, her heels digging into the hard muscle of his ass, urging him onward.

“Your desire … my command,” Spike gasped against her as his heart began to beat a violent tattoo against his ribs, his body quivering with the need she always stirred in him. Deep, bottomless, fathomless need. Need to make her quake and scream and buck, need to rocket her to heaven and follow her into that astral freefall through the stars. Need to fill her with his essence, to feel a part of himself flow into her, become part of her in that moment.

Spike pulled his hips back and plunged forward, slamming his cock into her in a violent, urgent thrust. Buffy’s back arched in pleasure and a high-pitched gasp of bliss escaped her lips. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, her heels pressing hard against his lily-white ass as she demanded, “More…”

A low rumble of primal lust rolled from Spike’s throat as he lifted back up onto his hands, resetting himself above her. “Open your eyes … look at me,” he demanded in a half-growl as he pulled back again.

Buffy wrenched her eyes open and locked onto his, and Spike jerked forward again, cock plunging into her with a hammer-blow of power and lust.

“Yes! Fuck! Yes!” she urged him as he pulled back and thrust forward again, rocking the Slayer-proof bed beneath them dangerously.

“More … harder … Spike! More …” she demanded, struggling to keep her eyes open and locked on his as the pleasure rippled through her, becoming almost more than she could bear.

A thick, resonate groan of need fell from his throat like a waterfall of animalistic hunger, washing over her like thick, warm honey. Spike’s hips crashed down on hers, impaling her throbbing, yearning body with his column of steel. Time and time and time again he hammered his desire home, pounding her body with every drop of strength and power and lust that filled him. He wanted her. God, he wanted her. He had to have everything she offered him. Had to hear her gasp and moan his name. Had to feel her body quiver and quake and tense and unravel beneath him. Had to watch her eyes as he fucked her, took her, filled her slick, supple core with his hard, unforgiving cock.

Jesus, God … he fucking loved her! Every cry, every gasp, every demand. The way she moved, the way she loved, the way she fucked him back just as wantonly, the way she took as much as she gave, and the way she gave everything!

“Jesus … Buffy … fuck! I love you … fuck … God … love … you … Buffy … fuucckkk!”

Buffy couldn’t keep her eyes open another moment. She tried – she tried _so hard_ – but the feelings pouring through her were too bright, too loud, too high, too deep, too sweet, too hot, too … too … just too everything!

She loved watching him in these moments. Watching him come undone. Watching him love her. Watching the lust and the ardor in his eyes, and then the base, primal, undiluted hunger as it took over. It made her shiver with longing, sending surges of need flooding through her body and bursts of color, like fireworks, exploding in her brain. He lifted her up there to that edge, that razor’s edge between reason and madness, that edge where nothing else mattered but the feelings he roused in her.

There was no darkness here, only light. There was no fear, only bliss. There was no hate here, only pure, exquisite love.

There was nothing here but them. Wrapped in a sinuous, flowing Milky Way of twinkling stars, in a blanket of unconditional love, in each other. She could feel all that surging through her, over her, sending the dark feelings scuttering away from the brilliant light of Spike’s fire.

His fire had always chased her darkness away. Always. Ever since the very first time. She didn’t know how he did it, but she was thankful for it each and every time. He saved her from that darkness, he reminded her what it was to live in the light.

She tumbled off that edge, falling into the radiant blaze of Spike’s love with the certainty that he would catch her … he would never let her crash against the rocks.

“Spike! Yes! Fuck … yes! Jesus …. Now! Fuckkkkkkkkkk!! Yes! Yes! God … fuck! Yes! Yesssssssssssssssssss!” she hissed, her hands clinging desperately to his shoulders lest he fuck her out of this dimension and into the next.

His whole body clenched and shuddered with her words as he felt her fall into the abyss of rapture. He slammed into her, pounding down on her clit with every bruising jerk of his hips, his cock plunging madly into her spasming channel. He was intent on sending her even higher, hearing her scream that much louder, feeling her quake and buck against him that much longer.

“Cum … cum for me … cum hard … fuck … Buffy! Bloody fuckkkk!!” he growled out as she pulled him with her over the edge and into the brilliance of a quasar, his body and mind exploding simultaneously.

His hips jerked against her, out of his control, as his cum exploded, filling his cock with pulses of bright, hot rapture. He could hear her screaming his name, but it seemed far away as he floated there, lost in the colorful lights that burst behind his eyelids. His whole being seemed to be filled with the euphoric songs of angels, the bliss of a thousand heavenly voices, as he found his release in her quivering depths.  

And then they were falling together, falling through time, through space, through heaven’s gate. There were no rocks to crash against. There was nothing to fear. There was no hate. There was no darkness.

There was only this. Only them. Only love. And love conquered all.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy sighed dreamily, curling against her husband’s side as he lay spent and sated on his back next to her. She had one leg draped over his, her head pillowed on his shoulder as he pulled her against him just a little tighter with one strong arm. Buffy’s fingers danced in gentle swirls over his chiseled abdomen, which rose and fell in an ever-slowing tempo as he regained his breath.

“You okay, luv?” Spike asked in a low purr.

“Mmmm,” she answered wordlessly, still lost in the sparks of pleasure that danced over her body and through her muscles like little bolts of contentment, keeping her floating just slightly off the ground.

“I love you so bloody much,” Spike continued, touching a soft kiss to her temple.

Buffy mumbled something ending in, “too,” watching with hooded eyes as his stomach quivered slightly beneath her touch. It made the muscles of his abdomen jump and his spent cock twitch in the most intriguing way.

They lay in peaceful silence, her fingers playing gently over his six-pack, his fingers strumming a loving tune up and down her back, pausing only to draw small circles over her hip where it rested against him. It was the most peaceful she’d felt since sometime the previous day, since before Riley Finn and his gun. She sighed heavily against him, relishing the love and serenity that lay over them now, like a shroud of pure calm and joy.

Buffy reached over and drew Spike’s other hand up to her lips and touched a soft kiss into his palm. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for always pushing the darkness back.”

Spike smiled softly, closing his fist over the kiss before lovingly tracing the back of his knuckles down her cheek. “It’s what we do, my love. Take away the other’s darkness.”

Buffy smiled and nodded against his shoulder, touching another kiss to his knuckles as they reached her mouth. It was what they did. It was, perhaps, their greatest blessing, their greatest superpower, the greatest gift the Powers had ever given them.

“Do you think it’s bad luck to make love just before our re-wedding?” she asked, then. “I mean, normally a bride and groom aren’t supposed to see each other before the ceremony, right?”

Spike snorted, the warm air picking up strands of Buffy’s hair and dropping them over her face in a gentle veil. “Reckon we weren’t supposed to have an armed ex at the pre-wedding weenie roast either,” Spike observed. “That’s why we’re rebels, pet. Never do anything by the bloody book.”

Buffy laughed lightly and nodded against his shoulder, blowing out a puff of air to get her hair out of her face. “I guess you’re right.”

“First time fer everything,” Spike agreed, smirking. “Don’t suppose you’d put that in writing, eh?”

Buffy laughed again and turned more onto her stomach atop him so she could look up into his eyes, still smiling. “Put what in writing?”

Spike rolled his eyes and nodded. “Figured,” he sighed. “I gotcha something,” he announced then, shifting beneath her.

Buffy’s brows went up. “Oooo ... again? Already? Did your ex come by, too, and make you into a vampire again?”

Spike narrowed his eyes at her, blue fire blazing in their depths. “Beg pardon?”

Buffy shrugged and looked down his body. Things might not have been quite as … _exceptional_ as an hour before. “Just sayin’…”

Spike growled, not quite the leonine rumble of a vampire, but a close second, and flipped her over, ending up straddling her hips with his. “I’ll have you know I can still keep up with the likes ‘o you, Slayer.”

“Ooooo …” Buffy purred, grinning madly up at him. “I love it when you get all growly.”

“Do ya, then?” Spike rasped before growling again, a low, deep rumble in his chest. He leaned down and raked the short stubble on his chin over her neck and face as he began tickling her sides with his hands. Buffy squealed, laughing and bucking beneath him, jerking this way and then that, trying to escape.

“Okay! I give! Pickles!” she shrieked breathlessly through her laughter as Spike pinned her down with his hips and tortured her with tickles.

Spike ceased his torture, almost as breathless as she was from the effort, and gazed down at her disheveled hair, flushed skin, and radiant smile. He couldn’t help smiling himself, his eyes glittering with mischief and love and just a touch of wicked satisfaction.

“Now then, do ya want what I got ya, or not?” he asked, trying to sound stern, but falling just short of the mark.

Buffy ground her hips up against his seductively. “Just what did you have in mind, big guy?” she asked, wagging her brows at him suggestively.

“A bloody sex maniac is what you are,” he contended with a heavy sigh.

“Is that a problem suddenly?” Buffy wondered, arching a brow at him.

“Noooo,” he drawled, leaving off the, ‘has your melon gone soft?’ part. See? He had grown and matured over the last ten years as a Slayer. “But you’re bollixing up my brilliant and diabolical plan to get you to have sex with me again,” he informed her as he leaned over and grabbed a small, sky-blue gift box off the bedside table.

“Oh, my bad,” Buffy replied, laughing. “Please continue with your sinister plot to ensnare me in your wickedly evil web of seduction and depravity.”

“Ta ever so,” Spike retorted wryly before holding the box out to her, his expression softening into solemnity.

Buffy’s brows furrowed, and she pushed up to a seated position beneath him, pulling in pillows to prop her back against. “What is it?” she asked, taking it from him once she was settled again.

“An elephant in a pink tutu and tap shoes,” Spike answered, rolling his eyes. “What the bloody hell else would it be?”

Buffy rolled her eyes but laughed, catching her bottom lip with her teeth as she pulled the top off the box.  Inside was a silver bangle bracelet with the same infinity symbol as she wore around her neck – the one he’d given her so many years ago. This one was all in black diamonds, but interwoven through the dark, sparkling symbol of forever was a heart in glittering white diamonds.

Spike watched her intently, his teeth biting down hard against his bottom lip as he awaited her response.

“Oh, Spike …” she breathed, opening the clasp and sliding it on her wrist. “It’s beautiful.”

She looked up from the bracelet to meet his eyes, her own shining brightly with moisture. “I love it,” she whispered, her voice suddenly rough with emotion.

Spike realized he’d been holding his breath only when he let it out in a slow, contented sigh.  “It’s my heart, luv. Yours for infinity. In case ya forgot.”

Buffy laughed and shook her head, dabbing at her eyes with her fingers. “I’ve never forgotten … never will.  But … I didn’t get you anything. I … I didn’t think. I’m sorry … I—”

Her words were cut off when Spike’s lips closed over hers, capturing them in a slow, tender, soul-deep kiss.  The kiss broke as gently as it had begun, and Spike leaned his forehead against hers, letting a long, contented sigh fall from his lips.

“You’ve given me everything, Buffy. Your love is all I ever need, pet.”

“No beer?” she asked softly, a smile curving the corners of her mouth.

Spike shrugged one freckled shoulder but otherwise didn’t move. “Your love and a proper stout ale … all I ever need.”

Buffy laughed lightly. “You’ve got it,” she assured him, touching her lips to his again as she wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss.

She briefly wondered if making love _twice_ before a re-wedding was bad luck, but quickly dismissed it. What’s the point of being a rebel if you don’t push past the limits of rebelliousness into the land of anarchy?

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 In early afternoon, dressed in shorts and tank top that read, ‘Because I’m the bride, that’s why,’ Buffy made her way down the stairway to the beach below, dodging workers and decorators as they bustled about, getting everything ready for the ceremony that would happen in the early evening, just before sunset. A whole crew of workers were installing a large, ‘floating’ wooden floor atop the sand at the bottom of the stairs which would be their open-air chapel and ballroom later – something to keep the sand out of everyone’s shoes for the ceremony and reception afterwards. Buffy skirted to the side as much as she could to stay out of the way, and stepped down off one side of the new floor to the sand below.

When her bare feet hit the warm, soft sand, she stopped, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Men and women with hammers and nail guns were putting the floor together in large sections. Each bang sent a small tremor through her, when someone dropped a heavy box of nails on the floor, she jumped, her nerves skittering up and down her spine, urging her to flee or fight.

 _There are no guns. There is no danger. Everything is fine,_ she assured herself, opening her eyes and looking over at the workers just to be sure.  _See? Just people … no Finn, no Warren … no guns, no vampires, no demons, no leprechauns. It’s fine._

Buffy started walking then, out toward the chairs and the firepit, which had all been moved over to one side of their sandy ‘back yard’ to make room for the wooden floor. With each step closer to the chairs her stomach tightened, each time her feet sank into the warm, soft sand made her skin crawl with trepidation. _Finn is in jail. Warren is dead. It’s fine._

Spike had often asked her if she knew the meaning of the word ‘fine’. Buffy was starting to wonder that herself.

“It’s fucking fine,” she growled out loud, making a couple of the guys nearby look up at her.  She gave them a slightly psychotic smile and kept walking.

She got to the chairs and stopped. Touching her hand down on the back of one of the heavy, wooden Adirondack chairs, she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. The workers continued banging and yelling back and forth at each other as they set and nailed new sections of the floor in place, she could also hear the waves rolling gently against the shore and seagulls calling in the distance.

The smell of the blackened wood in the firepit brought the memory of the previous night back to her. She’d read before that smell was one of the strongest triggers of memory. Something about how odors are processed by the brain in the same area that your brain handles memory and emotion. She thought about last night, about Finn and the gun. She remembered what he smelled like – strong, pungent B.O. liberally splashed in very cheap vodka with an undercurrent of … 

Buffy wrinkled her nose, trying to figure out what it was. And then it hit her – cologne … Polo, if she wasn’t mistaken.  Polo – just like Warren had worn. She hadn’t been as close to Warren as she had been to Finn, but the fragrance had carried to her on the air, it hit her almost the same time as the bullet had.

The bullet. Buffy’s chest tightened in remembered panic and pain, and her hands clenched down on the chair until the wood dented beneath her fingers. That was the overwhelming memory, nearly drowning out all the rest: pain. The smell of gunpowder or cordite or whatever it was they used in bullets filled her mind with panic, with fear, with heartache, with the smell of death.

_There is no gun. Warren’s dead. Finn’s in jail. He’s not getting out. Sam’s seeing to it. No one is bailing him out. There is no danger. There is no gun. There is no spoon._

Buffy repeated her chant over and over, holding onto the chair, her bare feet sunk into the soft sand, the sun shining down on her bare arms and shoulders, her hair lifting gently off her neck in the light breeze.

_There is no danger. There is no spoon._

“You are fine. Everything is just fucking _fine_ ,” she admonished herself aloud, as she took a deep breath of the fresh, salty air and opened her eyes. “See? Hunky with a side of dory, peachy drenched in keen,” she assured herself, forcing her hands to relax on the chair and allow the clear, gunpowder-free air to cleanse both her mind and her heart.

“That’s good to know,” Willow said from behind her, making Buffy jump and whirl around, fists rising into a defensive position automatically.

Willow gave her friend a reassuring smile, stopping well out of punching range. “You forgot five-by-five, super-duper, okeydokey, and full of salty goodness,” the red witch pointed out brightly.

Buffy dropped her hands and took another breath, letting the tension flow out of her body as she exhaled.

“You really like living dangerously, Will,” the Slayer pointed out, relaxing her stance.

Willow shrugged, taking another couple of waddling steps forward and dropping heavily down into one of the chairs with a sigh of relief. “What can I say? I’m just an adrenaline junkie.”

Buffy sat down in the chair next to her friend with a small smile. “More like a glutton for punishment. I can tell by you walking all the way down here with Thing 2 bulging like an overfilled beach-ball ready to pop.”

Willow laid her hands over her beach-ball sized stomach and laughed. “How did you do this _twice_?”

“Slayer strength,” Buffy replied with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Willow laughed again. “So, why stop at a two? Slayer strength … I’d think … five, six …”

“Don’t make me kill you,” Buffy warned, narrowing her eyes at the witch.

Willow laughed. “Spike said he wants enough for a soccer … errr ... excuse me, _football_ , team,” the witch shared.

Buffy snorted. “Well, I don’t know how many that is, but he can be the parasite incubator for the rest of them! I’ve provided a… ummm … what has two players on a team? Oh! A beach volleyball team!”

“Or mixed doubles tennis,” Willow suggested. “Oh, or bobsledding?”

Buffy nodded. “He’ll just have to be happy with the sleds of bob.

“So, Oz doesn’t want more than two?” Buffy asked, arching a brow at her friend.

Willow shrugged. “Honestly, I think he’s afraid to even suggest it right now. Grumpy Willow makes for grumpy Tara which makes for a fraidy-cat werewolf.”

Buffy laughed and nodded, totally getting that. “He’s a good dad. I’m so glad you guys ran into each other, Will,” she said sincerely.

Willow nodded. “He’s the best. I never stopped loving him, even when I knew I loved Tara … and he never stopped loving me, even though he had to leave. I knew they’d love each other, too, once they got to really, you know, talk and not just be all ‘ _grrrr’_ with each other.”

Buffy smiled and nodded, remembering her friend’s frustration with the two loves of her life when the red witch had literally run into Oz in Istanbul. It had been Willow and Tara’s first face-to-face meeting with Lilith. They were going there to thank her for all her help with defeating The First and the closing of the Hellmouth. They’d brought four dozen boxes of Thin Mints Girl Scout Cookies, which Spike said were the possibly-biblical sorceress’ very favorite, and which she couldn’t easily get in Turkey – as in, not at all. The witches were running late, having gotten lost on the winding roads in the strange city, both carrying a big box of their minty tribute.

Oz had just been coming out of the little alley that led to Lilith’s apartment, and Willow bowled him down as she came around the corner, sending boxes of cookies flying around the dirty alley. They spluttered and stammered, each shocked as they scurried to pick up the boxes, each talking at once, asking why the other was there. It turned out that Oz had gotten a lead that Lilith might have a cure for his lycanthropy – she hadn’t. 

It hadn’t exactly been love at first sight for Tara and Oz – possibly due to Oz trying to kill Tara back in Sunnydale several years ago. That seemed to cast a bit of anxiety and unease over them both – things like the threat of violent death tended to stick with you. And then there were the undercurrents of jealousy and fear that, while not overt, ran deep.

It was Willow’s declaration that she had enough love for them both, but did not _belong_ to _anyone_ that finally made them realize that they were being childish. That finally allowed Oz and Tara to see each other for who they were, not as ‘Willow’s other love’, not as ‘the competition’, and opened the door to the unusual, but happy, family they became.

“So, ummm …” Willow ventured. “We were talking, and we thought maybe we’d name Thing 2 ‘William Alexander’. Unless you think that would be too many Williams!” she added hastily. “I was thinking, we could call him Billy or … umm … Liam or even Alex. We could do ‘Alexander William’, but … I don’t know, I don’t like the way that flows. What do you think?”

“You want to name him after Spike and Xander?” Buffy asked, just to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood. “Not after … I don’t know, someone in your family, or Oz’s?”

Willow shrugged. “It’s just … well, they’re both such good men, ya know? And we already used Oz’s name for Daniel.

“When my son asks me where we came up with his name, I don’t want to say we got it out of a baby book or from some ancestor or blood relative who we barely know. I want to tell him about Spike and Xander, tell him that he’s named after good, strong, brave men who love their families.”

Buffy blinked back moisture that suddenly sprang to her eyes and nodded. “I guess you can never really have too many Williams.”

Willow smiled and nodded happily, patting a hand down on her bulge. “Hello, William Alexander,” she murmured down to it. William Alexander kicked his reply into her bladder. _Ouch_.

“Are you really peachy keen?” Willow asked then, looking at her friend with concern. “We could postpone…”

“People really need to stop saying that to me. We are not postponing anything,” Buffy snapped back immediately. “Riley Finn is not going to ruin my beautiful fucking day. I refuse to allow him any power over me or my damn life. Today is going to be happy and fun and romantic and amazing no matter who I have to bully, bribe, or kill to make it happen.”

“Don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel,” Willow teased.

Buffy sighed and rubbed a hand over her eyes and down her face. “Sorry … I didn’t mean to go all Gordon Ramsay on you,” she apologized, looking over at her friend. “I’m okay … I think I’m okay,” Buffy admitted. “I wanted to come down here and just make sure I wasn’t gonna freak out or anything later.”

“Are you freak-free?” Willow asked.

Buffy shrugged, digging her toes deeper into the sand as she watched the workers put another section of the floor down. “As long as no one wears Polo cologne, has really bad B.O, or shoots off a gun, I think so.”

Willow quirked a small smile. “Polo, huh? Isn’t that what they used to sell from that machine in the men’s room at the Bronze?”

“Did they?” Buffy wondered. “Wait! How would you know that? What were you doing in the men’s room at the Bronze, Will?”

“Nothing! We weren’t doing anything in there! I mean … I wasn’t in the men’s room! Xander told me,” Willow defended, turning a little pink.

Buffy laughed and shook her head before taking another deep breath of the fresh, clean, warm air and letting it out in a slow, calming exhalation. “I’m gonna be fine, Will. Thanks for checking on me.”

Willow shrugged. “What are friends for?”

Buffy stood up and stretched a bit in the warm sun, letting it caress her face with tingling radiance and clear away the last remnants of panic and fear from her.

“Uhhh … little help,” Willow requested, struggling to rise from the low chair.

Buffy smiled and pulled her friend up to her feet, only needing a little of her Slayer strength to accomplish it.

“Whew, I could’ve been stuck there for hours doing a beached whale impersonation if you hadn’t been here. Someone might’ve come along and rolled be back into the water,” Willow admitted. “Thanks!”

“What are friends for?” Buffy parroted back to her friend, draping an arm over Willow’s shoulders as they started back for the house.

* * *

 

**** NOTES ****

_**Warning: PLEASE HEED!**_  The coming chapters may be very disturbing to Spuffy fans. There will be saccharine sweetness, syrupy vows, long overdue wish-fulfillment, poetry, romance, floating hearts, and the defeat of evil bow ties. There will be overflowing rivers of cuteness peppered with blasts of schmaltz at levels previously unbeknownst to a P4S story. If you find any of this disturbing or triggering, you may want to stop reading now. You have been warned!

**_Note 1: Season 4, Episode 19, New Moon Rising:_ **

_Oz: It was stupid to think that you'd just be... waiting._  
  
Willow: I was waiting. I feel like some part of me will always be waiting for you. Like if I'm old and blue-haired, and I turn the corner in Istanbul and there you are, I won't be surprised. Because... you're with me, you know?

**_Note 2: “_ There is no spoon.” Reference:  [The Matrix ](https://youtu.be/uAXtO5dMqEI)**

_"Do not try and bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."_

_**Note 3:** SOUNDTRACK: _ [Rebel Rebel, David Bowie](https://youtu.be/U16Xg_rQZkA)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! More to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	93. Something Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arcane wedding traditions and bow ties are defeated, and the perilous decline of the tuna population may be saved. All with the help of friends.

* * *

 

When Buffy suggested renewing their vows for their tenth anniversary a few months ago and Spike had enthusiastically agreed, she began planning it all out. She’d gone on the computer and looked up customs for such ceremonies and, as was her wont, immediately dismissed every rule that was suggested. Well, not _every_ rule, but many of them. It was one reason she thought of it as a ‘re-wedding’ rather than a renewal of vows – the rules everyone had for vow renewals were, well, stupid. She wanted a _real_ wedding, by God, her _dream_ wedding, with a wedding gown and Giles walking her down the aisle, and that was what she intended to have, even if it was ten years late.

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” Willow recited, sitting in a chair with her swollen feet propped up on the bed in the master bedroom. She watched as Buffy studied her reflection in the full-length mirror, turning this way then that in her dress.

The ceremony would be just before sunset, only a couple of hours away. Willow, Dawn, Anya, and Annie were helping her get ready, and thank goodness! The dress had about eleventy-zillion buttons up the back which she’d never have been able to manage without them. Despite the buttons, she loved the dress and loved how she felt in it – like a fairy princess, girly and beautiful. She might’ve even felt a little damsel-y, at least when it came to slaying all those buttons.

The floor-length mermaid gown had a delicately embroidered bodice with long, silken, Chantilly lace sleeves, back, and flowing skirt. The soft ivory lace set off Buffy’s sun-bronzed skin as it dipped between her breasts just low enough to be alluring. The long sleeves were sheer but for twining vines of fine lace down their length and around her wrists, giving the dress a sophisticated, old-fashioned feel. The lacy bodice hugged her curves, all the way down to mid-thigh, before flaring out into a full skirt which was covered in the same sheer fabric as the sleeves, with more kisses of flowering lace adorning its length.  

Buffy ran her hands down the silky fabric, enjoying the rich, soft feel of it beneath her palms, as she turned this way and then that, studying her reflection in the mirror and watching how the skirt flowed as she moved. She loved it! She was a fairy princess, the girl-y-est girl in all of girldom.

“Well, you’ve got the ‘something old’ covered, at least,” Willow continued.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Buffy pouted, lifting her chin and trying to smooth the fine lines at the corners of her eyes with her fingers.

“Oh! Not you! You’re totally un-old, no oldness here!” Willow assured her. “I meant the necklace.”

“Oh,” Buffy said, relieved, as she touched the infinity necklace Spike had given her so many years ago that hung around her neck. “Right.”

“So that just leaves new, borrowed, and blue,” Dawn added, coming up to stand on the other side of Buffy.

All the women helping her were already dressed in their bridesmaid dresses. Buffy had chosen the color and fabric – a satiny, jewel-toned, rich ruby-red – but each of her friends chose the style they wanted from the selection at the shop. Annie’s was a sleeveless, knee-length, princess dress with lots of layers of poufy lace for the skirt, which she loved. Dawn had picked a strapless dress with lots of horizontal gathers along its length that hugged all her curves, ending mid-thigh. Anya’s dress had a halter top and lots of narrow, sharp pleats in the skirt that swirled around her legs when she walked and fell nearly to her knees. Willow’s dress had short, cap sleeves which clung to her upper-arms, leaving her milky-shoulders bare, and an empire waistline. The top was fitted to her curves, the bottom … well … the skirt was somewhat like a circus tent in order to accommodate Daniel’s little brother, William Alexander, and it swept all the way to the ground to hide her newest feature: cankles.

“Spike covered the ‘new’,” Buffy assured them, picking up the silver infinity heart bracelet from her dresser, sliding it on and closing the snap. “He gave it to me this morning,” she beamed, showing it to the other girls.

‘Oooos’ and ‘ahhhs’ followed as they admired the glittering diamonds, sighing dreamily when Buffy told them that it was Spike’s heart, hers for infinity, in case she’d forgotten.

“When did Spike get so romantic?” Anya wondered. “Xander’s idea of romance is fixing the drip in the bathroom sink. Be still my heart,” she droned sarcastically, placing a dramatic hand over her chest.

Buffy laughed. “Don’t tell anyone, it’s not good for his tough-guy image, but he’s always been a hopeless romantic at heart. He’s just good at hiding it from, well … almost everyone.”

Anya sighed. “Maybe he could give Xander some pointers … or at least go shopping with him for gifts that I so richly deserve. I bet you didn’t get a new electric mixer for Christmas wrapped in a Walmart bag last year, did you?”

Buffy snorted. “Uhhh, you see Spike still walking around on two legs? That would be an indication that he did not give me unwrapped housewares for Christmas. Though, I admit, his wrapping skills lean heavily towards ‘uncoordinated monkey with a scotch tape fetish’, but it’s what inside that counts, right?”

“A diamond bracelet wrapped in a Walmart bag could be forgiven,” Anya agreed.

“Okay, what about borrowed and blue?” Willow asked, bringing the conversation back to the point.

“I gave her one of my hair ribbons to tie around her bouquet!” Annie provided, smiling proudly.

Buffy touched her daughter’s shoulder, smiling and nodding. “And William gave me one of his beloved Spider-Man action figures to add to the bouquet.”

Willow laughed. “Which is both borrowed and blue. Spidey’s killin’ the arcane wedding tradition game.”

“He looks really pleased with himself sticking out of all those roses,” Dawn observed, picking up Buffy’s bouquet of red roses and showing it to Willow and Anya. “It’s like he’s crashing the party and he’s the only guy there, completely surrounded by a dozen beautiful women. How does that go? A thorn among the roses or something?

“I think he’s smirking. Are you sure this isn’t Spike dressed up as Spider-Man?” Dawn teased.

Everyone laughed, and the nervous butterflies in Buffy’s stomach settled a bit with the levity. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, savoring the warm, fuzzy feeling that settled around her heart. She was about to re-marry the man she loved, surrounded by her friends and family; she couldn’t ask for anything better. It was a dream come true, an old dream, a young girl’s dream, a dream that had nearly died for her many years ago, and that made it that much sweeter.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Spike! It’s almost time, what are you doing, man?” Xander asked, entering one of the spare bedrooms where Spike was dressing without knocking.

Spike looked up sharply from the leather-bound journal he held on his lap, his pen scratching a short rip in the paper as he did so. He was dressed, mostly, at least. He had on the white shirt and black slacks of his tux. The only thing still to be done was tying the bowtie that hung around his neck and slipping into the jacket.

“Bloody hell! Hasn’t demon-girl gotten you housebroken yet? Polite to knock before comin’ in a room! Might’a been doin’ something … _personal_ ,” the blond contended, trying to smooth the rip in the page back down. A bit of tape would fix it.

Xander rolled his eyes. “Like what? Picking your nose? I’m pretty sure anything ‘personal’ you might be doing in here, I’ve already done a thousand times. Wouldn’t be a big shock.

“So, what is it that you’re doing?” the brunette wondered, closing the door and walking over to where Spike sat on the bed.

“None o’ your bloody business,” Spike growled, turning a bit to try and keep his body between Xander and the journal.

Xander’s brows went up. “Naa, I’ve done ‘nunya’ before, and that ain’t it. What happened? Buffy put you in detention? You’re having to write lines? ‘ _I shall always refill the toilet paper dispenser when I empty the roll_ ’,” Xander mocked. “You know, you can get around that by leaving one sheet on there.”

Spike looked up at him, considering. “That actually work?”

“Naaa. But, technically I can say I did not use the last sheet and she can’t refute me. Doesn’t really make her any less annoyed, though – especially when she’s screaming for someone to bring her a roll and no one hears her,” Xander admitted as he moved around so he could see what Spike was doing.  “So, if you aren’t in detention, what _are_ you doing?”

Spike rolled his eyes and looked back down at the page, trying to refocus on his train of thought. “Writing a poem, if you must know.”

Xander’s brows went up. “Well, I stand corrected, shocked, and a little bit nauseous. I have never done anything that … errr … _personal_.”

Spike snorted and rolled his eyes. “Bloody philistine,” he muttered to himself as he tried to remember what it was he had been about to write before being so rudely interrupted.

“May I ask why you’re writing a poem? Do you have a fever? Maybe you’ve come down with something … preferably something painful and lethal?” Xander joked, looking down at the journal page that had several lines of script in Spike’s flowing hand.

Spike rolled his eyes and looked up at the big man. “May have noticed, getting re-married today. It’s what civilized people call a romantic gesture, but I reckon anyone who can’t knock on a bloody door wouldn’t have any notion o’ that.”

Xander’s face scrunched up in confusion. “What’s the matter? Buffy stopped putting out?”

Spike closed his eyes and clenched his jaw in annoyance and frustration, a tendon popped out along his cheek as he worked to get both under control. Finally, he opened his eyes and said, “How is it Anya hasn’t had you cursed or killed yet?”

Xander shrugged. “My sparkling wit and charming personality.”

“That’s bloody doubtful. Probably waitin’ for the life insurance to be fully vested.”

Xander snorted out a short laugh, but didn’t argue with that logic. “So, you’re saying, you’re doing this … ‘just because’ – you’re still getting plenty, she hasn’t made you sleep on the couch or eat tuna casserole for two weeks straight?” Xander asked, his brows furrowing again. He reached for the book, but Spike clasped his hand down over it, stopping him from taking it.

“I’m doing it, you git, so that I never have to experience any o’ that rubbish! Might want t’ try it sometime and stop the perilous decline of the bloody tuna population,” Spike advised.

“Huh,” Xander grunted, reaching for the book again. “Can I see?”

Spike scowled, but reluctantly released the leather-bound book from his grasp, letting Xander take it. Xander turned it around in his hands and flipped through the pages preceding the one where Spike was working, finding them all filled with more of the same elegant writing.

Xander’s brows rose as he flipped the pages. “All these!? You wrote her all these?”

Spike shrugged. “Less painful than tuna casserole,” he contended, watching Xander with wary eyes.

Xander shrugged and nodded slowly. “Could be…” he muttered, stopping on the page Spike had been working on.

“I Still Do,” he read the title aloud.

“I loved you from the first,

“I still do.

“I longed to dance with only you,

“I still do.

“I burned in your embrace,

“I still do.

 “I trembled when you touched me,

“I still do.

“I soared when you laughed,

“I still do.

 “I shattered when you wept,

“I still do.

 “I melted beneath your gaze,

“I still do.

 “I ached for your friendship,

“I still do.

“I rejoiced in your love,

“I still do.

“I endeavored to be the man you deserved,

“I still do.”

“I promised you forever,

“I still do.”

Spike held his breath as Xander read, his hands involuntarily curled into fists, his entire body coiled tight with trepidation. _If this git says one disrespectful word, I’ll bloody kill him._

Xander sighed out a small, thoughtful, “ _Hmm_ ,” when he finished, and shifted his eyes from the page to Spike’s. “You really mean all that, don’t you?”

Spike didn’t speak, just widened his eyes, lifting his brows interrogatively, and raised his chin.

Xander nodded and handed the book back to the blond. “I guess girls dig that mushy stuff, huh?”

“Some do,” Spike admitted, uncurling his fists, taking the book back.

“Aaand, getting them all mushy leads to swooniness, which leads to forgiving us for buying functional, but apparently inappropriate gifts, which leads to wild monkey makeup sex,” Xander supposed.

Spike smirked. “Ya won’t see me sleepin’ on the bloody couch,” he pointed out as he began breathing easier.

Xander grunted in thoughtful acknowledgement.

“You really did love her … even back then, didn’t you?” Xander asked after a moment, taking a step back from the groom, back out of Spike’s personal space. “I mean, I remember what you said at my wedding … it seemed like you meant it, but I was a little bit drunk.”

“What do you think?” Spike asked, his eyes narrowing in a silent challenge.

Xander shrugged then sighed. “I did too – a long time ago,” he admitted soberly. “I guess I should’ve written her some poems.”

Spike snorted and rolled his eyes, looking back down at the page and making a change to one of the lines. “Too late now, wanker.”

“It was always too late,” Xander sighed. “She never … it wasn’t … She just needed something that I couldn’t be, I guess,” he admitted glumly. “I suppose it all worked out for the best.”

Then Xander brightened, a new thought coming to him. “Hey! Maybe you could write some poetry stuff for me to give to Anya! Like a ghost writer! Maybe I can stay out of the dog house that way.”

“I’m a poet, not a bloody miracle worker.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“I can’t tie this facing you,” Xander announced in frustration a few minutes later, dropping his hands from the bowtie that drooped drunkenly from Spike’s neck.

“Well, yer not standin’ behind me and giving me a reach-around, I can bloody well tell ya that!” Spike insisted, scowling as he turned to face the mirror and untied the mess that Xander had made.

“Bloody mirrors,” he mumbled under his breath. “Can’t get used to ‘em. They’re bleedin’ backwards…”

“William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers, confounded by a mirror,” Xander quipped, rolling his eyes.

“Who tied _your_ tie?”  Spike asked, eyeing Xander’s perfectly centered bow.

Xander snorted and pulled it off, waving it in front of Spike. “Clip on.”

“Shoulda’ known you’d cheat, ya wanker.”

Xander laughed, elbowed Spike away from in front of the mirror, and re-clipped his tie to his white shirt, then began smoothing down his hair.

“You’re the most useless best man I could’a picked. What the bloody hell was I thinkin’?” Spike groused, nudging the larger man out of the way and starting to work on the tie again in the mirror.

“Pretty sure you were thinking that I’m cute and cuddly and you love me,” Xander teased. “Though I am disappointed that you never wrote a poem for me.”

Spike grunted. “Oh, I wrote you a poem. It’s a haiku, actually.”

“Really?” Xander asked, his eyes widening, a grin spreading across his face.

Spike nodded and recited,

“Xander’s a tosser,

Reeks like a festering boil,

Can I kill him now?”

“Oh, Spike,” Xander trilled in a high falsetto, batting his lashes seductively. “You hopeless romantic! I want you! Give me wild monkey sex!”

“Pffft!” Spike snorted. “Bugger yerself. I’m busy.”

“I think that’s physically unlikely,” Xander replied lightly, shaking his head but smiling.

“Actually, I think you picked me cos Giles is walking Buffy down the aisle and Oz is having to wrangle Wolfman Dan since Tara’s officiating and Willow’s in the wedding party. I was all that was left.”

Spike snorted. “Knew there was a reason,” he said, dropping his hands in frustration as the tie listed dangerously to one side, the bow completely lopsided.

“On the plus side: I haven’t lost the ring,” Xander announced proudly, pulling a delicate, silver skull ring from the pocket of his black, rented tuxedo’s slacks. “I don’t quite get why you got her a skull ring, though,” he said, frowning. “It doesn’t seem very … romantic or wedding-y, even to me.”

Spike rolled his eyes, pulling the end of the tie and undoing the knot he’d put in it. He turned then and held his left hand out to Xander. “Buffy thought it was wedding-y enough, I reckon. Matches mine, ya nit,” Spike informed him.

Xander drew his brows together and shook his head. “You two have created a whole new category of bizarre previously unknown to humankind.”

“Take that as a compliment coming from the likes o’ you,” Spike scoffed, turning back around to do battle with the tie once again.

“Spike! It’s time! Buffy’s ready! What are you guys doing in there?” Sam asked, knocking on the guest bedroom door. “Wait – maybe you shouldn’t answer that!”

Spike huffed out a breath and pulled the door open. “Trust me, not havin’ my way with this git. I’m savin’ myself for the wedding night,” he told her. “Providing I can get married without a bloody tie. Who invented these things, the Marquis de Sade?”

Sam laughed, rolling her eyes and stepped into the room. “Xan, can you tell them the groom hasn’t run away and will be down in a couple of minutes?”

“A mission I can accomplish!” Xander agreed, stepping toward the door. He pulled the door open a bit more, but stopped, turning back toward the groom. He extended his right hand toward Spike, and the blond took it reflexively, then raised his brows in question, meeting the larger man’s gaze.

Xander shrugged. “I might not have been supportive-guy the first time – not exactly on Team Spike then,” he admitted. “But … well, congratulations, I guess … or ummm, many happy returns?”

Spike smirked. “That’s for birthdays … but I take yer meaning.” His expression sobered then, and he said, “Thank you. Appreciate it.”

Xander released his hand and nodded. “Should we hug now?”

“Definitely not. I’m outta your bloody league, mate.”

“In your dreams,” Xander refuted, before turning and heading down the hall on his mission.

Spike turned his eyes to Sam. “I’m dyin’ here, pet. Do any of those musty Watcher books cover how to slay bowties?”

Sam smiled and tugged on the ends of the tie that hung loosely around his neck, straightening them before she began tying it. “Once again, the brains of a Watcher are needed, not the brawn of a Slayer. I don’t know when you’re going to learn how invaluable your Watcher is.”

Spike curled his tongue against his teeth as she worked. “Not so sure about Watchers, but old friends are treasures.”

“Who are you calling ‘old’, buddy?” Sam shot back, trying to keep her voice and face stern, but failing on both counts as a smile tugged the corners of her mouth.

Spike smirked. “Middle-aged, then?”

“You really shouldn’t insult a woman who has a garrote around your neck and knows how to use it,” she advised, pulling the knot a little tighter than necessary.

Spike choked and reached up and hooked a finger beneath it, tugging it away from his windpipe. “Point taken,” he rasped out. “Beg pardon, ma’am.”

Sam scowled at him. “Not helping yourself one little bit, _mister_.”

Spike chuckled as Sam finished tying the bow. She gave it a last small tweak to straighten it, then smoothed her hands down over his shoulders. “You look very handsome … even if you are a wise-ass.”

“My ass has always been wise. Not sure why everyone’s still surprised by that,” Spike chided.

Sam leaned to one side and peered behind him, inspecting the wiseness of his ass. “Not sure ‘wise’ is exactly the word I’d use for your ass.”

Spike sniffed. “All you Watchers want t’ do is ogle my bloody ass.”

“Not true,” Sam refuted, turning and retrieving his jacket from the back of a chair and holding it up for him to slip into. “I think most of them have other much more physically demanding ideas for what to do with it.”

“I feel so objectified,” Spike sighed dramatically, slipping his arms into the jacket and settling it on his shoulders.

“Oh, trust me, you are,” Sam agreed, laughing. “Why do you think Giles keeps having those sexual harassment seminars?”

“I did wonder about that,” Spike replied. “Apparently, they’re workin’; I feel impressively harassed every time I walk through headquarters.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want the one and only male Slayer to feel unwelcome or unloved,” she teased.

He turned back to face her, and Sam picked a couple of small flecks of white lint from his jacket before nodding her approval. “I think you’re ready to get married again, Mr. Pratt.”

Spike bit his bottom lip and nodded before taking a deep breath. “Do ya remember when we first met?”

“How could I forget?” Sam laughed. “Riley shot you, Buffy beat him up … last night was almost like déjà vu all over again.”

“A bit too close,” Spike admitted. “But after that, ya asked me if she’d caught me … kept me from crashing on the rocks.”

Sam nodded. “I remember. You said she hadn’t yet, and I told you later that she would.”

“Not sure I ever thanked you properly for that,” Spike told her, picking up a small jewelry box from the dresser and handing it to her. “It meant a lot to me to hear that just then.”

“Spiiike,” Sam drawled, taking the box. “You didn’t have to…”

“Wanted to. You’ve been a friend … helped me when ya didn’t have to, when it could’ve hurt you.” Spike shrugged. “It’s not much, just a token.”

Sam opened the box to find a naturally smooth, round beach stone inside about the size of a half-dollar, though thicker. It had been made into a pendant hanging from black, silk cord, was dark grey, almost black, and had a heart hand-engraved on one of the flat surfaces.  

She lifted it up by the cord, smiling at the metaphor. “Not letting your love crash against the rocks,” she surmised, looking from the pendant to Spike, meeting his eyes.

He shrugged one shoulder, feeling suddenly a little self-conscious. It wasn’t anything fancy … it had just struck him when he’d seen it. It made him think of Sam, of all she’d done for him, of the friendship and respect she’d given him, even as a vampire. She’d taken him as he was, made up her own mind, regardless of Riley’s opinion. She’d judged him on his actions and his words, not on what others thought and not on his past. It was something he’d always cherish and be grateful for.

“I love it, Spike. It’s perfect,” she breathed, nodding. “Thank you.”

Sam leaned in and touched a soft kiss to Spike’s cheek before offering him both ends of the necklace. She turned around and lifted her long, curling brunette locks up from her neck, inviting him to fasten it for her. He did, gently placing it around her neck before deftly working the clasp and letting it settle against her chest.

Still smiling, she turned and looked at it in the mirror, touching a finger to the cool, smooth surface of the stone. “Oh, man! Everyone’s gonna be so jealous back at headquarters,” she teased, still smiling as she met his eyes in the mirror. “Spike rocked my world.”

Spike laughed and shook his head. “You lot are bloody insufferable,” he accused. “Knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Sam laughed too, reaching for the door. “Let’s go get you re-married before Buffy thinks I’ve kidnapped you and comes to hunt me down.”

“Never did get to see a proper fight between you two. Would pay good money for that,” Spike continued, following her out.  “There could be oil involved.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you’re enjoying the poetry and slaying of bow ties. Still to come: saccharine sweetness, syrupy vows, long overdue wish-fulfillment, romance, and floating hearts. Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! More to come. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	94. I Still Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Buffy reaffirm their love, adding new vows to the old.

****

* * *

 

Buffy stood dressed in her wedding gown, red rose bouquet in hand, waiting for her turn to start down the stairs. She was in a temporary, heavy canvas cabana on the veranda near the top of the stairway that led down to the beach below, which shielded her from view as she waited. She blinked back the emotion that had sprung to her eyes, and tried her best to loosen the grip it had on her throat and chest as the music she’d chosen for the bridal party’s entrance played.

[Grow Old With Me, Mary Chapin Carpenter (written by John Lennon)](https://youtu.be/T7x5B0DoXpQ)

_Grow old along with me,_  
The best is yet to be,  
When our time has come,  
We will be as one,  
God bless our love,  
God bless our love,

_Grow old along with me,_  
Two branches of one tree,  
Face the setting sun,  
When the day is done,

_Grow old along with me,_  
Whatever fate decrees,  
We will see it through,  
For our love is true.

Willow had gone first, descending the stairs slowly and carefully, feeling off-balance with her bulging belly. Anya followed her, taking her time so that she didn’t actually catch up to the waddling Willow. Dawn, Buffy’s maid of honor, followed them a few moments later in her rich red dress, a bouquet of white canna lily blooms in hand, just like Willow and Anya had.

William and Annie had just started down the steps. Buffy’s daughter was spreading red rose petals all along the path as she made her way down to the beach to stand at the altar and await the bride. Young William, dressed in a black tux like his father, bore the rings they would exchange in a handmade, inlaid wood jewelry box that Xander had made for her in the shape of an infinity symbol. It was about the size of a child’s shoebox and had two deep, teardrop-shaped drawers which came together at the points to reflect the ‘figure eight’ design of infinity, one drawer for each of their rings. Xander had made them several lovely things over the years, all beautiful, but this was Buffy’s favorite by far since the symbol held such a special meaning to her.

Buffy stood in the open doorway of the cabana, breathing through the emotions the music was stirring in her and trying her best not to smudge her makeup. She forced herself to focus on the beach below as she cleared her throat and did her best to not start crying – at least not yet.

The company had finished the temporary hardwood flooring atop the sand with only an hour to spare, but it had been enough. It was about the size of a basketball court, plenty large enough for the ceremony and the reception afterwards. Walking around or dancing in strappy heels in the sand wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, including Buffy’s. Everything was decorated in the same rich ruby red of the bridesmaid dresses along with black, which all of Spike’s retinue wore, with splashes of white here and there, like in the calla lily bouquets, for contrast.

There were more red roses and white calla lilies than Buffy thought existed in the entire state of California surrounding the altar and scattered around the edges of the open air, ballroom floor. There were hundreds of red, white, and black pillar candles scattered in groups in the sand surrounding the gathering. As the sun got lower in the sky, they would provide more and more of the light for the celebration.  Hanging about ten feet off the ground around the perimeter of the floor were swags of sheer, white fabric. Wrapped within the diaphanous, gossamer garlands were a plethora of small, clear fairy lights, which would add a bit more twinkling light to the gathering after dark. On the floor, chairs were lined up in rows on either side of the aisle for their guests. There weren’t a lot, just the people – and demons – who they were closest with, who meant the most to Spike and Buffy, who they wanted to share this celebration of love with. Buffy was happy to see the guests were evenly divided between ‘her side’ and ‘his side’.

“You’re glowing,” Angel declared from behind her, his voice an awestruck breath of adoration. He’d be staying in the cabana during the actual ceremony, which, if they had timed it right, would end just as the sun touched the horizon behind them. “Does he really make you this happy?”

Buffy turned away from the view of the beach below and looked at him, giving the vampire a melancholy smile. “Yes, he really does.”

Angel nodded, looking out a small, clear vinyl window in the canvas, careful to avoid the sun that streaked in. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

Buffy’s smile became a bit more of a smirk. “Yes, he really does,” she repeated.

Angel blew out a silent torrent of air in disagreement, but didn’t say more on that subject. “I wish it could’ve been me, Buffy. I wish … things had been different.”

Buffy nodded knowingly. “If wishes were horses, then this horse is long dead,” she pointed out gently. “Don’t you think you should stop beating it?”

Angel nodded, still looking miserable. “All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy,” he said, finally.

Buffy gave him an understanding smile. “I am,” she assured him as she heard the DJ’s speakers begin playing her tune, the traditional [Wedding March from a Midsummer Night’s Dream by Mendelssohn](https://youtu.be/kD1p8uvQCn4%C2%A0), the music of her childhood dreams. “That’s my cue.”

Angel nodded, looking down through the small window again. He could see Spike in his tux standing to one side of the altar, waiting patiently for Buffy. Xander, also in a traditional black tux, stood next to Spike, and next to Xander was Sam in a floor-length, sleeveless, flowing black dress that emphasized her long, lean build while reminding everyone of her feminine charms. William was just getting there with the rings, and he took a place next to his father as Annie went to the other side to stand with the bridesmaids.

“Happy wedding … or re-wedding … or it is merry wedding or … break a leg … may the Force be with you?  I’m not really clear on this whole thing,” Angel said to her back as she began to step out and into view of everyone on the beach below, who had stood up and turned to look up when the music changed.

Buffy’s smile widened and she turned to look at him over her shoulder. “How about you just wish us a lifetime of happiness?” she suggested.

“I’m not sure I’m physically capable of wishing Spike happiness,” Angel replied bleakly. He sighed then and rolled his eyes. “Be happy, Buffy. I’ll … I’ll tell Spike later,” he acquiesced, barely keeping a groan of physical pain from his voice.

“Thank you,” she replied before taking a deep breath and starting down the stairs.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy walked slowly down the gently curving stairs, her long, golden hair fluttering around her shoulders in the light breeze. Her cheeks started to ache from smiling, but she could have no more stopped smiling than she could’ve stopped breathing at that moment. She tried to take in everything, to remember everything – the warm sun on her face, the silken dress against her body, the sweet scent of the roses in her bouquet, the soft roar of the ocean beneath the traditional wedding march that lilted up softly from below.

As she approached the last landing, Buffy saw Giles standing there waiting for her. He was dressed in a black suit – not tweed, as Spike had predicted – with a white dress shirt beneath. His tie was red, the same rich shade as the bridesmaid’s dresses. He gave Buffy a tender smile, his eyes soft and full of ardor as she approached him, and he presented the crook of his arm for her to take.

“You are a vision,” Giles whispered, his voice full of pride and more than a little awe.

Buffy bit her bottom lip and felt a blush rise up over her neck and face. She had to blink madly to keep the moisture that had suddenly sprung to her eyes from escaping.  Her heart swelled within her chest with so much love and respect for this man who had become her surrogate father that the extent of it could not be expressed with mere words. It was a role that was not expected or required of him, but which he’d done out of the goodness of his own heart, out of love and affection for her and for her whole family.

He was a better father to her than her biological father had ever been. She’d found Hank several years ago. Or well, to be precise, Wesley and Sam had finally tracked him down for Buffy after Annie had been born.  She thought it was only fair to at least tell him that he had a grandchild. He was back in California living only a couple of hours away. When his granddaughter was three months old he had come to visit, to see his daughters for the first time in years, and to meet Spike and Annie. Spike hadn’t been less than enthusiastic about the reunion, unwilling to forgive Hank for his treatment of his daughters, but he held his tongue – mostly – because Buffy wanted it.

Hank seemed excited to have a grandchild and to reconnect with Dawn and Buffy, and everything was pretty good … for a while. They would call each other periodically, and he came by for a few holidays, lavishing them all with extravagant, but impersonal, gifts. After a couple of years, however, he met someone new and fell in love, and his old family, once again, seemed to slip from his mind and his life.  

Buffy had called him when William was born to tell him he had a grandson, but Hank seemed distant and uninterested. When she’d called to tell him about Dawn graduating from Stanford and being accepted into Cambridge’s PhD program, he hadn’t even called back.  The emotional pain of Buffy’s eighteenth birthday, the first birthday that he’d ever missed taking her to the ice capades, was happening all over again. She refused to put her children through that kind of heartache, which she still felt just as strongly as she had all those years ago.

To Spike’s relief, it was then that Buffy made a final decision regarding Hank Summers. She’d gone around and gathered up every gift she could find that he’d given her family. It wasn’t that hard since most were things none of them had any use for and remained in their boxes in the closet collecting dust. She sent every single one back to him with a simple note wishing him a good life with his new family, and she had not heard anything from him since.

Taking Giles’ arm now, seeing the love and tenderness in his eyes, she knew that she’d made the right decision. This man would not abandon her or her family. He was the man she wanted her children to look up to, to emulate, as they would look up to and emulate a grandfather. And he was the man she wanted walking her down the aisle at her fairy-tale re-wedding to the other man in her life who she knew would never disappoint them.

“You clean up pretty well yourself,” she replied, her grin never fading as she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.

“Are you ready?” he asked as they turned to face the front of the gathering and the aisle that was now carpeted with rose petals.

“I was born ready,” Buffy replied with a small, nervous laugh as she felt the eyes of all their guests settle on them … well, on _her_.

Giles chuckled quietly. “Of that, I have no doubt, my dear,” he remarked as they began walking slowly forward toward the altar, toward her past and her future, toward her lover, her friend, her heart and soul, toward Spike.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike watched Willow, Anya, and Dawn make their way down the stairs one by one and then up the aisle to stand on the other side of the altar from him. He stole a glance at Nick, who was, to Spike’s surprise, sitting on the groom’s side of the aisle. The boy was enthralled, clearly unable to take his eyes off Dawn as she stood waiting for Buffy to join them. Spike looked back over to Dawn, who had found her fiancé in the small group and seemed equally unable to look away from him. He smirked in satisfaction; perhaps the git would fit into this family after all.

“Quit fidgeting!” Xander hissed from behind Spike and the blond quickly dropped his hands from the collar of his shirt, unaware until then that he had been fidgeting.

“Xena forgot I need t’ breathe now when she tied this bloody garrote,” Spike muttered back, lifting his chin to try and get some relief from the bowtie’s stranglehold.

“There’s nothing wrong with the tie,” Sam defended from the other side of Xander, speaking low. “Maybe you’re just nervous about Angel being alone up there with Buffy.”

Spike snorted softly, but his eyes tracked up to the small cabana at the top of the stairs. “Don’t think she has a bloody stake with her,” he admitted, scowling.

“Buffy always has a stake with her,” Xander assured him in a whisper. “She probably had a special pocket sewn in the dress for it.”

Spike looked at the brunette, arching a skeptical brow at him, but then tilted his head slightly in agreement. He wouldn’t put it past her.

Spike turned his attention to the children who were coming up the aisle now. They were clearly trying to walk slowly, as they’d practiced, but it was a struggle for them. Annie had to keep putting a hand on William’s shoulder to keep him from hurrying too far ahead of her. William Rupert, thy nature is not patience. Wonder where he got that from?

Spike caught his bottom lip in his teeth as he watched them, a now familiar feeling of warmth and comfort settling around his heart like a blanket of pure love. His children. His family. _His._ He blinked rapidly to keep the dampness that suddenly sprung to his eyes from tumbling out, taking a deep breath to try and hold everything in check. He couldn’t devolve into a poofter now, maybe later, but not now. He had vows to reprise and an eternity to re-promise.

“I don’t see any dust on her dress,” Xander pointed out as William came to stand between him and Spike.

The music had changed. All their guests had risen and turned as one as the wedding march began while Spike had been pulling himself back together. Spike looked up to the top of the stairs and his breath caught in his throat again as Buffy began to slowly descend the staircase. Her beauty never failed to make his heart skip and his breath catch, but now he wasn’t sure if his heart would ever return to a normal rhythm again. 

She was an angel floating down from heaven. She seemed to literally glow in the golden light of the early evening sun, her hair shimmering around her shoulders like spun gold. As she reached the bottom and turned with Giles to face Spike, he could see her smile, brilliant and genuine, and that feeling in his chest that had begun while watching his children, thickened and tightened around his heart, making it hard for him to breathe.

“You’re not a vampire anymore … breathe, Spike,” Xander hissed in a low voice, reaching a hand out to poke Spike in the ribs.

Spike jumped a bit, sucked in a lungful of air, but never took his eyes off the woman walking down the aisle toward him. He was physically unable to look away from her in her silken lace gown. Her cheeks were flushed, her green eyes bright and filled with joy, her smile never wavering as she approached him. She was more beautiful than he’d ever seen her in all the years he’d known her. He didn’t think it could’ve been possible, but it was true. She was an angel, his angel, his one and only, his heart, his soul, his life and love. She was his past, his future, his everything.

Their eyes met and held as she drew near, and he felt himself being drawn into her gaze, into those pools of sparkling emerald, into the depths of her beauty and love. It wasn’t until Giles began speaking that Spike remembered that he was even there, that anyone was there except Buffy, for that matter.

“Buffy is her own woman,” Giles began speaking to Spike in a clear voice that could be heard by all.

Spike blinked, the enchantment broken, and looked over at Giles.

“She is not mine to give nor yours to possess,” the older man continued, meeting Spike’s gaze. “But she has chosen you to stand at her side in this life, to be the guardian of her heart and the healer of her soul.

“While I have not always understood her choice, it has become clear that she has chosen wisely. You stepped up to stand beside her when it was necessary for me to step away. You have proven to be a man of your word, a good father and husband, a keeper of promises, someone worthy of her trust – and mine. I thank you for sharing her burdens, for lessening her pain, and for returning her laughter, William.

“Do you now promise continue to stand at her side, to be her partner in all things, to grow old in love in each other’s arms?”

Spike cleared his throat and nodded solemnly. “I will … she has my promise,” he replied in a softer, more refined accent than his usual cockney.

Spike extended his right hand toward the man that had been Buffy’s surrogate father for so many years and Giles took it in a firm handshake of mutual respect, neither man trying to crush the other. Giles then touched a soft kiss to Buffy’s cheek and settled her hand into Spike’s before he turned away and took his seat in the front row.

Dawn stepped up near Buffy and took the bouquet of blood-red roses from her, freeing her sister’s hands for the ceremony. The Slayer blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the emotions that surged up from her heart as her eyes met Spike’s and held there as if in suspended animation for several long moments. His eyes shimmered in her blurred vision then finally came into focus, blue pools of glittering love and devotion pouring into her.  In that moment there was nothing else, no one else, just them, just their love, just this soul-deep connection that had been torn and tested through battles large and small, but that had endured and grown stronger for the struggle.

And then Tara began to speak from her place before them, the Wiccan priestess who would lead them through this reaffirmation of those vows they’d given to each other so many years ago in Buffy’s bedroom. Her voice was gentle, an almost healing balm, like her soul, but with the passing of time had become confident, her manner poised, as she addressed the gathering.

Spike and Buffy turned as one to face her, the ocean, and the setting sun, with their hands still joined, as Tara spoke. “Welcome, friends and family. We are gathered today to celebrate the love and union of these two souls as they step forward into a new decade of partnership, friendship, and marriage.

“This ceremony is but an outward sign of their inward union of heart, mind and spirit, a celebration of the joining of two souls already attuned to each other. We are here to bear witness to the love and devotion shared between our beloved friends, who are already one in spirit.”

Tara turned her attention to Buffy and Spike then, her voice lowering slightly as she addressed them.

“When you first joined hands and hearts in marriage a decade ago, you didn’t know where life would take you. You promised your undying love and devotion to one another through all things; you promised to cherish, support, and comfort each other in this life and beyond. Life has surely brought you both wonderful blessings and difficult challenges over the years, more of both, perhaps, than either of you could have foreseen. 

“But here you are today, having kept the vows you each made on your wedding day, having survived the darkness and emerged into the light of the goddess, still one soul, one heart, one love.  

“As you celebrate here today with your family and friends, and as you reflect back over all the years as husband and wife, do you now wish to reaffirm the vows you took all those years ago?” Tara asked, looking from Buffy to Spike.

“We do,” both blondes said as one voice. They turned then to face each other, both hands joined across the short space between them, their eyes meeting again.

Spike was once again struck by the glowing beauty of the woman looking back at him. It was something that he should’ve gotten used to over all the years, but simply hadn’t. She always seemed to be able to take his breath away, no matter what she was wearing or doing, no matter the state of her hair or clothes. She could have mud streaked on her face from working in her garden or be swimming in the glittering ocean, she was just as glorious in all her incarnations. And now she stood before him as an angel bathed in the soft, rosy glow of the sunset, warmth and beauty, softness and strength, a force of nature and a gentle caress.

He forced himself to breathe again and tried to clear his throat without making any noise so he could speak, but the first word came out as a small, stuttering croak before he got control of his voice.

“Y-y-you,” he began, in a low rasp, his voice growing stronger as he finished, “are a bossy bint.”

An audible, confused gasp came from the gathered friends, but Buffy spoke over them, “You are a stubborn ass.”

“You steal all the bloody covers,” Spike retorted as the onlookers began to murmur a low hum of concern in the background.

“You snore like a hibernating bear,” Buffy shot back.

“You can, and have, burned boiled eggs,” Spike continued.

“You fed the kids chocolate cake for breakfast,” Buffy reminded him. “And you leave the toilet seat up.”

“I leave it _up_? How about you always leave the bloody thing _down_!” Spike retorted.

“I’ve had to remind you every damn week for ten years that Tuesdays and Thursdays are trash days!” Buffy shot back.

“You can’t suss out how to fill the soddin’ car up with petrol! On empty every bloody time I use it!”

“You put empty milk cartons back in the fridge, empty cereal boxes back in the cupboard, and never seem to write anything but ‘beer’ on the grocery list!”

“You keep nattering on about ‘eating healthy’, shoving bits of grass and leaves at me like I’m a bloody rabbit – _I’m not_! Covering ‘em up with cheese don’t make ‘em any more edible.”

“You leave puddles of water all over the bathroom floor and leave your towels, which apparently you don’t know how to use, everywhere!” Buffy added.

“You leave your frilly knickers all over the bloody bathroom, like walking through Victoria’s Secret t’ even get a shower!”

“You use more hair-care products than I do!” Buffy shot back.

“You have stupid hair,” Spike retorted, sniffing.

The sound of the murmuring from their gathered friends had risen to a gentle roar by the time they both stopped talking, still facing each other, still holding hands, still looking into each other’s eyes. Slowly, their lips curved up into smiles and then short, burbling laughs shook them, growing into full-throated chortles in just a few moments.

The confused looks and whispers of their friends turned into laughter also as Spike and Buffy tried to get their mirth under control.

“I love you, you bossy bint,” Spike announced ardently, his voice still rumbling with laughter.

“I love you, you stubborn ass,” Buffy replied emphatically, her voice quavering slightly with laughter of her own, her smile wide and brilliant.

Spike cleared his throat and worked to settle his amusement back. He gripped her hands tighter, letting himself fall back into the depths of her gaze, into her beauty, into her love, before speaking again. He waited a few moments for their guests to quiet before he spoke, this time with no hint of levity, but only heartfelt ardor, though his lips were still curved in a smile.

“I love you, Buffy. Not only for what you are, but for what I am when I’m with you,” he pronounced, his voice clear and strong, but his accent softening slightly, caught somewhere between the upper-crust and the working class, somewhere between William and Spike.

Buffy let herself get caught up in the blue of his eyes, in the intensity of his gaze, and her hilarity faded into seriousness, allowing the depth of her love to surface.

“I love you, Spike,” she replied. “Not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you have helped me make of myself.”

“I love you,” Spike said, his voice still strong and serious. “For the part of me that you bring out, for finding the light within my darkness.”

“I love you,” Buffy continued, her eyes still locked on his. “For sharing your light and filling my darkest days with hope.”

“I love you,” Spike took up. “For believing in me, in my heart, in my soul, even when I didn’t believe in myself.”

“I love you,” Buffy said. “For the promises you’ve made and fought to keep, for all you’ve sacrificed to be at my side.”

“I love you,” Spike replied. “For your tenderness and strength, for nurturing the parts of me that I thought were forever lost.”

“I love you,” Buffy said. “For showing me what true love is and what it means, with your words and your actions.”

“I love you, Buffy,” Spike continued. “I always have, and I always will.” He turned then, and young William lifted the small jewelry box up. Spike pulled out one drawer and retrieved the delicate skull ring he’d gotten for her, the one that matched his except for its size.

Spike lifted Buffy’s right hand and began to slip the ring onto her ring finger. “I give you this ring,” he vowed then, looking up to meet her eyes, “as a symbol of my love, my dedication, my loyalty, and my fidelity. I will forever be here to laugh with you, to lift you up when you are down, to fight at your side, to be your shield and your sword. I am yours, unconditionally, in this world and beyond.”

Buffy swallowed hard, trying to keep from being overwhelmed by the emotions running through her. She fought to stay in the moment, to remember everything from the look in her husband’s eyes to the feel of the sun on her skin as it sank toward the horizon, to the way her hands trembled slightly in his. The ring was a warm, tangible weight on her finger – she thought she could actually feel the depth of his devotion where the ring embraced her skin, as if part of him resided there within it.

“I love you, William,” Buffy rasped out through a tight throat after Spike finished settling the ring on her finger.  “Today, yesterday, and for all of my tomorrows.”

She looked down then, breaking the eye contact, and young William stepped over to her so she could retrieve the plain silver band she’d gotten for Spike, a slightly larger duplicate of the one she wore on her left hand that Spike had given her so many years ago.

Buffy began to slip the ring onto Spike’s right ring finger before looking up to meet his eyes. “I give you this ring,” she vowed as she slid the ring into place, “as a symbol of my love, my devotion, my trust, and my loyalty. You are my best friend, my faithful partner, my one true love. My heart, my soul, my body, my mind, and my spirit are yours, in this world and beyond.”

Spike took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting her words settle deep in his chest and wrap around his overflowing heart. None of his wildest dreams, either as a human or a demon, had ever felt like this, so full of hope, of joy, of love so pure that he was sure angels would weep in rapture if they looked upon it. He could feel her hands tremble slightly in his, though his were none too steady. He squeezed her hands harder, and she returned the gesture – both holding on to the other, giving strength to the other, saving the other, as they had done so many times before.

Spike’s eyes never wavered from hers as he proclaimed, “Years ago, I promised you my love, my heart and my soul for all eternity. I still do.”

Buffy swallowed back the flood of emotion that had wrapped around her throat, keeping her eyes locked on his as she replied, “Years ago, I promised you my fragile heart, my never-ending love and faithful devotion. I still do.”

Tara cleared her throat subtly and pronounced in a clear voice, “May the goddess and the universe continue to bless this union with laughter and love to light your days. May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that endures all of life’s trials, large and small. May life’s passing seasons only deepen your love as you walk forward together as Mr. William Henry Pratt and Mrs. Buffy Anne Summers-Pratt.

“The bossy bint and stubborn ass may now begin the next chapter of their lives with a kiss,” Tara finished, a lopsided smile curving her lips.

Buffy and Spike’s lips both curved up into impish smiles as they leaned in toward each other. Their lips met as they had ten billion gagillion fafillion times before, but it somehow seemed like it may have been the very first time. As the sinking sun touched the far away horizon and fluffy clouds danced joyously above them, painted in the fiery, breathtaking hues of the sunset, Mr. and Mrs. Pratt melted into one another. In that moment there was nothing else but the infinite love, unconditional trust, and eternal devotion that flowed between them, engulfing them as surely as the sky was engulfed with the blazing radiance of the setting sun. 

Love. Trust. Devotion.

Infinite. Unconditional. Eternal.

Two souls joined across time and space, unable now to fathom life without the other at their side.

Eternity captured in a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked the ceremony. Still to come: dining, dancing, toasts, romance, and floating hearts. Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	95. Can You Feel the Love Tonight?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding celebration, including plenty of mushiness, continues. I did warn you about the syrupy sweetness, did I not? Okay, then … you’ll learn to listen when I warn you about stuff, won’t you?

 

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy couldn’t stop grinning. She felt like a loon, honestly, but it didn’t matter. The photographer wanted some sweet, romantic, serious-type photos of her and Spike, but it was a battle for her to wipe the wide smile from her face to pose for them.  She managed it, at least long enough for the fellow to snap some shots of her and Spike on the beach beneath the cotton-candy clouds, which seemed to have been painted by the setting sun just for them. Clouds danced gayly in blended shades of bubblegum pink, tangerine orange, and ruby red, sweeping across the horizon in a breathtaking array of color. Buffy couldn’t have wished for a better end to the day if she’d custom ordered it from Amazon.com or, you know, God or whoever.

Spike, too, seemed to be having a hard time not smiling. Buffy’s grin was infectious; he simply couldn’t help it. Something about having an official ceremony in front of all their friends, seeing Buffy glowing like an angel in her gown, shaking Rupert’s hand, having bloody Xander standing up for him, making his promises to her in front of God and everybody … all that made their marriage … well, officially official, he supposed.

Not that they hadn’t treated their very intimate ceremony as official, because they had, both of them. From the very first they’d taken their vows seriously, considered themselves husband and wife, but this reaffirmation of those vows in front of everyone quelled some small niggling voice deep inside him that it wasn’t a ‘proper ceremony’. _Bloody William_ , he thought derisively, but then he snorted at his own ludicrousness.

He _was_ William. William, the Vampire Slayer. Yes, there was still demon inside him, he was still very much Spike, too, but it was more of a partnership now, rather than an adversarial conflict and struggle for power deep within him.

Spike, the Vampire Slayer.

Hmmm … what had Buffy called them that time? Spilliam, the Vampire Slayer? Well, maybe not.

Well, whoever he was, he was on top of the bloody world. And Buffy was right there next to him and would be for all the rest of their tomorrows. No wonder he couldn’t stop smiling.

“Okay, if we could try a serious one with your foreheads leaning together, eyes closed …” the photographer suggested, waving a hand to show Buffy and Spike where he wanted them to stand to make best use of the rapidly dwindling light.

They tried. They really, really did. Spike wrapped his arms around Buffy’s waist and she around his as he bent down and rested his forehead against hers.

“Okay … deep sigh and relax … think romantic … serene now,” the photographer directed, framing them and the glowing sunset into the viewfinder of his camera.

Buffy and Spike both took deep breaths and let them out in slow sighs, schooling their faces into solemn neutrality that befitted the seriousness of the occasion.  The photographer got one or two snaps of that before Buffy began to giggle. She bit her lip, trying to hold it in, but a deep, resonate laugh began to burble up from Spike’s chest and it made her giggle more.

“Be bloody serious!” Spike reminded her through his barely-contained chortle.

“I am totally serious!” Buffy retorted, her eyes still closed, their foreheads still pressed together, her voice full of amusement.

“You’re as serious as that bloody wharf rat at Chuck E. Cheese,” Spike contended.

“It’s not a wharf rat!” Buffy argued, still not moving from the pose. “It’s a mouse!”

“Mouse my aching arsehole,” Spike grumbled. “Biggest bloody mouse I’ve ever seen.”

“Never mind,” the photographer sighed. “How about another kiss before we lose the light?”

Buffy grinned and pulled out of the previous pose, her green eyes flashing with joy. “Kisses! That I can do!”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

While the photographer captured the happy couple and the wedding party on the beach beneath the fiery sky, the ‘chapel’ was transformed into a reception hall by the company that Buffy and Spike had hired to handle all that.  Chairs that had been lined up on each side of the aisle now encircled tables covered in black tablecloths with grand centerpieces of red roses and white lilies.  The round tables were scattered artfully around the perimeter of the basketball-court-sized wooden floor, leaving the center for dancing beneath the stars. The fairy lights that hung around the edge of the floor twinkled softly within their gauzy garlands of white fabric, providing gentle illumination to the tables. In addition, the myriad of pillar candles in the sand around the floor were beginning to glow brighter as the sun set, giving way to the twilight and the night beyond.

The DJ and guests were awaiting the return of the wedding party from down near the shore to begin the reception, milling around, talking animatedly about the ceremony and the unusual beginning to Spike and Buffy’s vows. An open bar had been set up on the veranda above the beach, the theory being that if you couldn’t manage to walk up the steps to the bar, then you probably didn’t need another drink, anyway.

[[Natalie Cole, This Will Be (an Everlasting Love) ](https://youtu.be/X-jfWKrQqlg)   ]

 _“This will be,_  
“An everlasting love.  
“This will be,  
“The one I've waited for.  
“This will be,  
“The first time anyone has loved me, oh, oh, oh.”

Everyone turned to look as ‘This Will Be an Everlasting Love’ began playing through the DJ’s speakers and he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the happy couple, Mr. and Mrs. Pratt,” just as Buffy and Spike stepped back up onto the elevated floor, hand in hand.

 _“I'm so glad,_  
“He found me in time,  
“And I'm so glad that,  
“He rectified my mind,  
“This will be,  
“An everlasting love for me, whoa, oh.”

They were both still grinning madly as everyone applauded their entrance to the reception. Spike couldn’t stop himself from scooping Buffy up into his arms and spinning around a couple of times as she shrieked and laughed harder. Buffy clung to his neck and threw her head back, her long, blonde hair flying out behind her in waves of shimmering gold in the last rays of sunlight.

When Spike came to a stop facing their guests he dipped his mouth to hers, capturing her lips in a glorious kiss. It was the tenth time he’d kissed Mrs. Summers-Pratt … not that Spike was counting or anything.

 _“Loving you,_  
“Is some kind of wonderful,  
“Because you've shown me,  
“Just how much you care,  
“You've given me the thrill of a lifetime,  
“And made me believe you've got more thrills to spare, oh.”

This brought more applause and more than a few whistles and catcalls from their guests, making Buffy begin to giggle against his mouth again.

“Mr. Pratt, I do believe we’re supposed to save something for the honeymoon,” Buffy teased, still holding on to his neck, her green eyes dancing in the deep purple twilight that had begun to envelop them.

 _“You've brought a lot of sunshine into my life,_  
“You've filled me with happiness I never knew,  
“You gave me more joy than I ever dreamed of,  
“And no one, no one can take the place of you.”

“Have I ever let ya down yet?” he wondered, arching a brow, his own blue eyes glittering with joy.

“Ummm … let me think,” she mused, touching a finger to her lips as she pretended to ponder this.

Spike jostled her in his arms and she laughed again, pulling his lips back down to hers with one hand behind his head. “Never,” she whispered against his mouth before kissing him again … number eleven.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

The music changed, and the DJ announced the first dance. The gathered guests stepped back to the edges of the dance floor, which was a large, empty area in the center of the tables.

Elton John sang from the speakers as Spike set Buffy back down on her feet and led her by one hand out into the center of the floor. 

[ [Elton John - Can You Feel the Love Tonight (From "The Lion King"](https://youtu.be/KjgWWjkNbhU))  ]

 

 _“There's a calm surrender to the rush of day_  
“When the heat of the rolling world can be turned away  
“An enchanted moment and it sees me through  
“It's enough for this restless warrior just to be with you.”

The song was from The Lion King. They’d let Annie and William choose the song for their first dance. It had come down to this one or ‘Beauty and the Beast’, but both kids really liked ‘The Lion King’ movie best, so it won.

 _”And can you feel the love tonight? It is where we are,_  
“It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer that we got this far,  
“And can you feel the love tonight? How it's laid to rest,  
“It's enough to make kings and vagabonds believe the very best.”

Hundreds of candles flickered from the sand, casting a soft glow over the beach and the dance floor, the fairy lights glittered, and silver stars began to twinkle above them as Spike pulled Buffy into his arms and began to sway with her to the slow, soft music.

He certainly could feel the love tonight. Tonight and every night. But tonight that feeling seemed even more vibrant than ever before. If you’d asked him yesterday if he could’ve loved Buffy more, he would’ve replied with a scoffing snort – but right now, with her in his arms, with their vows witnessed by the world, he did.  His heart, it seemed, had grown a bulge in it, inspired by her beauty … Effulgent.

 _“There's a time for everyone, if they only learn,_  
“That the twisting kaleidoscope moves us all in turn,  
“There's a rhyme and reason to the wild outdoors,  
“When the heart of this star-crossed voyager beats in time with yours.”

“I finally get that first dance,” Buffy teased, smiling up at him as he led her in a gentle, swaying dance to the slow music.

Spike bit down on his bottom lip, considering her for a couple of silent heartbeats before replying, “Told ya before, luv, every dance is yours.”

Buffy sighed and leaned into him, lost in the feel of his warm, strong body against her, his arms around her, the soft illumination of the glowing candles, the last whispers of the sunset, and the music flowing over them.

She wished it could’ve been like this for them ten years ago – a real wedding with their vows given in front of friends and family. But it had been done on an impulse, and anyway, there hadn’t been time then.  Everything was, literally, going to hell. The simple task of announcing their private marriage to her friends had been made more difficult than it should have been because of the impending apocalypse and Buffy’s own, personal guilt over Warren’s demise. It had ended up being a point of contention between them instead of the joyous occasion it warranted.

Warren. How ironic was it that, even as a ghost, he’d imposed himself into her celebration again?  Only, no, he hadn’t. She’d simply refused to allow anyone, including old ghosts, to ruin one moment of this celebration. She stopped that thought cold, turning her focus wholly back onto her husband, her children, and friends, and the joy of the day.

Despite the rough start to their marriage, they had made it. They both valued their vows and honored them. They made it through hell, literally, and came out the other side even stronger.  The joy of their new life only grew with each passing year, with the miracle of a vampire being given another chance at a real life, with a new city to call home, with the birth of their children, and now with their ‘re-wedding’ in front of all their friends and family.

They had made those new memories that Spike had promised her – a million new memories, a million perfect memories.

Buffy felt tears well up – happy tears, joyful tears, tears full of hope and love and the promise of a thousand tomorrows in each other’s arms.

“ _And can you feel the love tonight? It is where we are,_  
“It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer that we got this far,  
“And can you feel the love tonight? How it's laid to rest,  
“It's enough to make kings and vagabonds believe the very best.”

As the song began to fade, Buffy lifted her face up to her husband and he looked down into her shimmering eyes. Their gazes met and held there, suspended in the music beneath the purple haze of the twilight sky as the stars began to twinkle into life, one by one.

Their lips met in a tender kiss as the song ended, their bodies still swaying together gently, their hearts so joyful and light it felt like they might simply drift away on the gentle breeze and join the stars in heaven.

_“It's enough to make kings and vagabonds believe the very best.”_

 

As their lips parted and the song faded, another began, flowing seamlessly from the first. Spike pulled back slightly from her then and turned to beckon William and Annie to join them.

 

[ [Teach Your Children Well, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young]](https://youtu.be/EkaKwXddT_I)

 _“You who are on the road,_  
“Must have a code that you can live by,  
“And so become yourself,  
“Because the past is just a good-bye.”

Buffy’s heart constricted in her chest with infinite happiness as their children hurried from the ranks of friends around the floor, beaming widely. William, a little mini-Spike in his black tux and corn-silk curls, headed for Buffy. Annie in her flower-girl dress, her wavy, chestnut hair flowing out behind her like a silken waterfall, headed for her father.

Spike lifted their daughter up onto one hip and Buffy did the same with William, and they turned back to face each other, moving back in close. Their bodies were already swaying again in time to the new song as they came together, parents and children engulfed in each other’s love.

 _“Teach your children well,_  
“Their father's hell did slowly go by,  
“And feed them on your dreams  
“The one they picked, the one you'll know by.  
“Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,  
“So just look at them and sigh,  
“And know they love you.”

As they danced as a family, Buffy prayed their children would never know their father’s hell, or hers for that matter. She wished they could grow up knowing nothing about Slayers or demons or delusional soldiers with guns. But there was only so much she and Spike could do to shield them from the life that had chosen them both, the life that had ultimately brought them together. It was at once a curse and a blessing – if they had not gone through their respective ‘hells’ – real and metaphorical – neither of them would’ve had any chance at meeting the other, and Annie and William would not even exist.

It was one of those logic circles that made Buffy’s head hurt if she thought about it too much.

Buffy nuzzled her lips beneath her son’s soft corn-silk hair and touched a soft kiss to William’s smooth forehead with a heartfelt sigh. He tolerated that well enough, but when she ruffled his curls with her free hand, the boy scrunched up his face and try to pull back from her, whining a protest of, “Mommeeee, doooon’t.”

Buffy laughed, holding him tighter and snuggling her face against his neck playfully as she swayed along to the song.  She had thought she knew what love was before Annie and William were born. The first time she held her daughter she realized that she’d had no idea at all. When William was born, she felt like her heart would simply explode – the love inside her had doubled, she didn’t know how her heart could even begin to contain it all. But it had. And it had only expanded with each passing day.

 _“And you, of tender years,_  
“Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,  
“And so please help them with your youth,  
“They seek the truth before they can die.”

 _“Teach your parents well,_  
“Their children's hell will slowly go by,  
“And feed them on your dreams,  
“The one they picked, the one you'll know by.”

Annie clung to Spike’s neck like the little monkey he’d previously likened her, before she’d gotten “too old” for such nonsense names.  While he could see traces of himself in her, she was unmistakably a bitty-Buffy.  A little beauty with bright eyes, smart and stubborn and strong-willed, but also kind-hearted and sweet when the occasion dictated – like last night with her brother. She took immense pleasure in lauding her superior age and knowledge on various subjects over her brother, but when it came down to the brass tacks, she was his big sister, his protector, his port in any storm. Spike had no doubt that she, like himself and Buffy, would do anything to protect William from any manner of monster, real or imagined.

Every day Spike thought there was no way he could love his children more than he did, and every single day he’d been proven wrong. They were always surprising him. Each day there was something new they’d done or said that made him simply stop and gawp in awe and wonder.

They were miracles. Buffy was a miracle. His entire life was a bloody miracle.

He watched Buffy blowing soft raspberries against William’s neck as his son squirmed and giggled. Spike laughed, turning his adoring eyes to their daughter who was also laughing at her mother’s silliness. He reached his free hand out and pulled Buffy and William nearer, still swaying to the old song. They finished the dance laughing as a family, one entity, one heart, one love, and the promise of a million more memories yet to come.

_“Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,  
“So just look at them and sigh, and know they love you.”_

 

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

With everyone seated, the first course of Andrew’s meal was being served by Tobias and a couple of other waiters from the Venomous Unicorn, and champagne flutes were being filled for the toasts.

Spike looked at the plate of rabbit food with disdain. “Who the bloody hell ordered this? Waste o’ the little geek’s talents, this is.”

“Ummm … me,” Buffy replied, smirking. “Think of it as part of the next, ummm … _chapter_ of our marriage – both of us eating salad and veggies that aren’t deep-fried.”

“ _Pffft_ ,” Spike grumbled. “Just on special occasions, then?”

“Uh, well … yeah, like on every day that ends in ‘y’,” his wife suggested.

Spike scowled.

“It would set a good example for the kids. William is watching you,” Buffy said in a low voice, her eyes flicking to their son who was, indeed, watching Spike from the other side of the round table.

Spike’s scowl deepened. “You better be right about this rot. If I eat this and still die young, I’ll come back and bloody kill you.”

Buffy laughed, her eyes dancing. “It’s a deal.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 

With everyone’s champagne flutes filled and the first course of the meal served and being enjoyed by _almost_ everyone, it was time for the toasts.

As best man, Xander stood up first, moving out into the center of the floor, microphone in hand. He cleared his throat as he looked to the table where Buffy and Spike were seated with Annie, William, Dawn, and Nick. When everyone quieted down and gave him their attention, he began, “On my wedding day, Spike told me that Buffy believed we were both worth saving. I wasn’t so sure, to be honest – mostly about him, of course, but I might’ve been a bit prejudiced.” Xander paused a moment as a wave of knowing laughter rolled over the guests.

“Now, eleven- _zillion_ years later, we’re both still standing, because the beautiful, strong, amazing women who had mercy on us kept us from drowning in the darkness.” Xander raised his glass of sparkling water toward the pair of blondes. “Here’s to you both – may the light of your love always be stronger than the darkness of empty gas tanks and raised toilet seats that are sure to fill your future, as they have your past.”

Everyone laughed, including Buffy and Spike, and raised their glasses toward the best man before taking a sip of the sweet bubbly.

The maid of honor, Dawn, jumped up from her chair next and hurried out to the center of the floor to take the mic from Xander for her turn.  “I just want to say that I couldn’t have asked for better role-models than you two. You’re both brave and strong and true, and you love with your whole beings, not just your hearts.

“I know, because I heard that full-body love _way_ too often in my fragile, formative teens,” she only half-joked, drawing another round of laughter from the group. “Buffy, you’re my sister, but you’re like my mom, too. Spike, you’ve always been my friend, my protector, the big brother I never had. There aren’t words yet invented that can express to you how much I love you both, and how much happiness I wish for you in the years ahead.

“Thank you for showing me what true love is.” Dawn raised her glass of champagne up towards the pair and they returned the gesture, damp eyes all around the room blinking rapidly to try and keep tears from falling.

To Buffy and Spike’s combined surprise, Angel stepped out of the shadows on the edge of the open-air room to take the mic from Dawn next.

“Do ya have a stake, pet?” Spike whispered to Buffy, watching Angel warily as the big vampire shifted uncomfortably on the spot, all eyes on him.

“I’m in my wedding dress?” Buffy hissed back. “Of course I don’t have a stake.”

“What the hell kinda Slayer are you?” Spike snarked back, still in low tones.

“Me? You have pockets! Where’s _your_ stake, _Slayer_?” she wondered, giving him an annoyed look.

“So, ummm …” Angel began, halting their whispered conversation. “I’m not much for speeches, but … uhhh … I thought I’d just say that I … well, I’ve never seen you more beautiful, Buffy. You’re … you’re glowing, and I guess that has to do with the … err … with Spike.”

Buffy gave Angel a sympathetic smile, understanding that this must be uncomfortable and difficult for him, but he seemed to be sincerely trying.

“So, I just want to wish you both a lifetime of happiness,” Angel said in a rush, trying to get the words out before he choked on them. He only then realized that he didn’t have a glass of anything to toast with. Sam, who was sitting nearest him, jumped up and handed him her glass and he raised it up toward the happy couple.  “Keep her happy, Spike.” It _might’ve_ sounded more like a threat than a wish.

Spike curled his tongue against his teeth and raised his glass towards his grand-sire … or ex-grand-sire? “Intend to … _perfectly happy_ ,” he snarked back in a low voice that he knew Angel could hear.

Angel gave him a hard glare, but lifted the glass to his lips and took a small sip before shoving the mic and the glass back into Sam’s hands and stalking off to take his place at a table next to Faith.

“Oh, ummm … my turn, I guess,” Sam stammered, turning her attention to Buffy and Spike. “I don’t even know where to start.”

She cleared her throat a moment, tucking a strand of long hair behind her ear and gathering her thoughts before beginning again. “Spike once told me that love is jumping off the edge of the world and hoping that the person you love will be there to catch you before you crash against the jagged rocks and splinter into a million pieces. When I told Buffy that, she suggested someone should put up some yellow caution tape on that ledge and install some safety railings.”

Once again, a round of laughter washed over the group and Sam paused before continuing. “I’ve never known two people who were more meant for each other, more perfect together, who balanced each other out more fully. I wish you a lifetime of catching each other before you even get close to crashing on those rocks,” Sam finished, lifting her glass toward Buffy and Spike.

Buffy and Spike both raised their glasses, giving Sam warm, heartfelt smiles before joining her in taking a drink of their bubbly.

A few other friends followed, each offering short anecdotes and well wishes. Clem wished them the blessing of having all the stray cats in the neighborhood having kittens in their garage. Oz wished them the happiness of a lifetime bathed in chocolate and brandy, and Spike the wisdom to know it was all Buffy’s. Wes promised to call Spike if another dragon showed up in L.A, but at Buffy’s stern look, backtracked and simply wished them much happiness in their dragon-free future.

Even Nick stood up and wished them well with a little poetic blessing he’d found in a book of toasts while preparing for this visit. Yes, he’d _studied_ before accompanying Dawn to visit her family. And he’d memorized and rehearsed it in front of a mirror. _Don’t judge_.

“May your life be long and happy, your cares and sorrows few,

“And the many friends around you prove faithful, strong, and true. 

 

“May your voyage through life be as happy and free,

“As the dancing waves on the deep blue sea.

 

“And may your love endure beyond the last setting of the sun,

“And your souls remain joined forever as one.”

 

Willow tottered slowly from her seat to speak next. She ran one hand down over her dress, emphasizing the bulge made by the upcoming addition to their tribe as she gave the happy couple a nervous smile. “Spike and I have a bit of a checkered past,” she began, still smiling. “Of course, I guess a few of us could say that about Spike,” she admitted, drawing an ‘ _Amen to that, sista,’_ from Xander.

Willow laughed, Spike smirked, and Buffy shrugged with a small eye roll of agreement.

“So,” Willow continued, “the fact that we’re naming our next son ‘William Alexander’ just goes to show the power of love, how true love can affect us, how it can change the whole trajectory of our lives.”

Spike’s jaw dropped open as Willow continued speaking, trying to comprehend exactly what she meant … was she naming the new pup after _him_? It caught him off-guard, the idea whirling around with no anchor in his mind. No, that can’t be what she meant … can it?

“Spike and Xander both love their families with all their hearts. Despite empty milk jugs and ghastly decisions on Christmas gifts,” Willow continued, turning to give Xander a meaningful look, “they’re honorable men with good hearts. We want our son to know that he was named for two good men, good fathers, good husbands, who he can use as role models, men who he can look up to and emulate.

“So … umm…” Tears welled in Willow’s eyes and she waved her free hand at her face like a fan, trying to stop them from falling. She swallowed hard and blinked rapidly, trying in vain to hold them back. She tried to speak again, but her voice cracked.

Oz stepped out onto the floor and up to her, taking the mic from her hand and wrapping an arm around her comfortingly. “What the overwrought pregnant woman is trying to say is: My schedule is dodgy. Being a werewolf, not the thrill ride you’d expect. Not awesome on fatherhood modeling, either. So, it’s a plan to name him after two dudes who are good models … of the fatherhood type, not the ‘Project Runway’ type. You know, if that’s cool with you,” Oz finished, looking from Spike to Xander and back again.

“They want t’ name their sprog after _me_?” Spike breathed in a low voice, looking over at Buffy, a confused and uncertain expression on his face.

She gave him a proud smile and laid her hand over his where it rested on the table. “They do. Say ‘yes’,” she advised him, squeezing his hand reassuringly.

“Bloody hell…” he muttered, his confusion lifting and morphing into a glow of amazement and wonder.

“So, is that gladness or terror?” Oz wondered. 

“Be bloody honored,” Spike said loud enough to be heard by everyone, drawing applause and murmured approval from the group.

“Not sure how I feel about this,” Xander began, standing up from his table and heading out toward Willow and Oz. “Even I know that ‘A’ comes before ‘W’ – they said so on Sesame Street! I really feel like my agent didn’t push hard enough for top billing,” he kidded, smiling broadly as he drew Willow into a tight hug.  “Are there royalties involved?”

Willow laughed and cried against Xander as Spike came out and joined them on the floor, extending a hand out to Oz, who shook it solemnly. “The judges will accept that as a 'yes',” Oz announced levelly, releasing Spike’s hand.

Spike turned his attention to Xander and Willow. “Give the bloody star a turn, ya git,” Spike growled, pulling against the brunette’s shoulder to get him to release Willow.

“You know, I’m never gonna hear the end of this, don’t you?” Xander moaned, looking at the emotional mother-to-be.

“B-but … we could call him … Alex … o-or even Xander?” she blubbered.

“Oi! None o’ that, now! Call ‘im by his proper name,” Spike interjected, pulling Willow into a hug as Xander released her.

“Well, that won’t be confusing or anything. Be like living in George Foreman’s house … every kid with the same name!” Xander objected. “’Who broke the lamp? _William_!’” he mocked. “The smartass one, the one with his nose in the book, or the one eating Daniel’s worms?”

“Sod off,” Spike taunted, releasing Willow from the hug. “Just jealous cos I’m the hot star with his name before the title, and you’re the extra no one knows cos they don’t stay for the credits at the end.”

“Oh my gosh. I’m starting to regret this,” Willow moaned, looking between the two of them as she wiped at her wet cheeks. “Role models? Remember? Good ones … not like … Beavis and Butt-head!”

“We’re not Beavis and Butt-head!” Xander objected as Spike exclaimed, “Oi!” in his own displeasure.

“We’re like … ummm …” Xander began.

“Han Solo and Chewbacca,” Spike provided, grinning.

“Yeah … like that …” Xander agreed, then frowned. “Wait a minute … who’s Chewbacca?”

Spike snorted, arching a brow at him.

“Oh no …” Xander disagreed, waving his hands in front of himself negatively.

“Dudes, you’re totally killin’ my vibe here,” Oz stopped them. “Anyway, you’re clearly Fred and Barney.”

They both turned thoughtful expressions his way. Oz shrugged. “Upside, neither of you are monosyllabic furballs. Just think of the savings on hair-care products.”

“Yabba-dabba-dooo,” Xander crooned and Spike snorted out a laugh.

The two namesakes of the coming addition to their group pulled Willow and Tara, who had joined them on the floor, into a group hug as Oz stepped back, pleased, his mind eased knowing that his sons would have slightly smartass, but strong, role models around when he couldn’t be there.

After everyone resumed their seats, the last toaster, Giles, stood before them, microphone in hand. He cleared his throat, whether from discomfiture or emotion it wasn’t clear.  “I … uh … I cannot tell you how happy I am for you both,” he began. “Buffy, you have grown into a beautiful, strong, simply incredible woman. A woman that any parent would be proud of. I wish your mother were here to see you today – she would simply be beside herself with joy. And, though I am not your father by blood, I love you as if you were my own. I cannot tell you how proud I am of all that you have done and all that you have become.

“You are a kind and giving mother, a loyal friend, and a loving, patient wife … which is quite good considering your husband’s penchant for … err… cheekiness.” A few laughs and snickers washed over the group, making Giles pause a moment, smiling, but his sincere, serious expression resumed before he spoke again. “As your Watcher, I honestly never thought I’d see this day … I don’t believe any other Watcher before me has.

“We are standing here tonight, celebrating your happiness, in no small measure because of the man at your side. I did not always understand or agree with your choices, but you were correct in choosing Spike as your ally, in giving him your trust, and … and your love.”

Buffy smiled through her tears and looked over at her husband, her expression glowing with pride and respect and no small measure of love. Spike felt like he’d grown several inches in stature beneath his wife’s adoring gaze and the Watcher’s words. Although Giles had said as much to him last night, he certainly had never said such a thing in public before today – and now he’d said it twice. Vindication was bloody sweet.

Giles lifted his glass of champagne towards them. “I wish you both the normal life that you’ve always wanted, filled with the laughter of your children, the unconditional support of loyal friends, and proper beer … which Spike did not hide well enough, by the way, so that part will likely need to wait for restocking.”

Buffy laughed and Spike snorted, both lifting their glasses towards her surrogate father in acknowledgement. He’d get Giles for that … bloody wanker.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

With the guest’s toasts over, the DJ gave Buffy the mic and she stood up and cleared her throat, not moving from her place at the table next to Spike. When everyone turned their attention on her she said, “Life is short and uncertain. Everyone knows this, but they still tend to take tomorrow for granted. As a Slayer I knew that I was destined to die young. It’s what Slayers do … _did_ , back then.

“Except, I didn’t. Or … well … it didn’t stick, anyway.”

Buffy paused as a murmur of laughter passed through the group. As it died, she took a deep breath and continued, “I’ve lived long enough to develop these wonderful wrinkles that are euphemistically called ‘laugh lines’ because of many of you. Because of my friends. Because of my Watcher. And, most of all, because of my husband.” Buffy laid a hand on Spike’s shoulder. Their eyes met and held for a long moment as she gave him one of those adoring smiles that never failed to take his breath away – now literally.

“Spike promised me that we would make a million new memories, and he’s kept his word. He promised to love me forever, and, well, so far, so good,” she joked, making Spike snort out a short laugh.

Buffy looked back up to the gathered group. “Not all those memories have been Kodak moments,” she admitted, drawing a knowing murmur from the group as they thought about the previous night. “Some of these lines aren’t from laughing – but the vast majority of them are. Every memory, good and bad, is a gift. Every day is a blessing. This life, with a loving husband and beautiful children and amazing friends, is something that I was afraid to even hope for when I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen ...”

Buffy’s throat tightened and she clamped her eyes closed a moment, collecting herself as everyone waited, their own eyes prickling with moisture just watching her try to stay composed. She cleared her throat again and opened her eyes, blinking to keep her tears in check. “I feel like Cinderella, tonight especially, in my gown with my very own Prince Smartass … err, I mean Charming…” She flashed a quick smile down at Spike, who rolled his eyes, making everyone laugh again, “… at my side. You’ve all saved me from turning into a half-rotten pumpkin when my midnight struck.

“I just want to thank you all for giving me this life … this life of my dreams. I am truly blessed to be here, and to have so many people that I love here with me. So, my wish for you all is that you hold the people you love close, tell them how much they mean to you, and live each and every day as if it were a blessing, because it is.”

Buffy raised her champagne glass up, sweeping her arm out to encompass everyone, before clinking it gently against Spike’s and taking a sip before sitting down again.

Spike took the microphone from her and stood up then to address their guests. He cleared his throat and everyone shifted their attention to him. “What she said, only, ya know, snarkier,” he said, lifting his glass to the room. Everyone laughed, lifting their glasses again as he took his seat.

“Can we eat some bloody meat now?” he growled under his breath to Buffy. “I’m soddin’ dying here without proper food. Gonna waste away t’ nothing.”

She laughed and nodded as she saw the waitstaff coming out with the main course. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? Bloody meat is on the way. I need you at full strength for later … so I can … umm … take full advantage of you,” she teased wagging her brows at him suggestively.

Spike curled his tongue against his teeth. “Best get me two, then, pet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isn't that the COOLEST BANNER?!?!! Give it up for Paganbaby!! 
> 
> If you have made it this far in this story, CONGRATULATIONS! You have officially read over 400,000 words!! And there’s still more to come!
> 
> Hope you liked the toasts. Still to come: yet more mushiness, dancing, Spike and Angel oddly not trying to kill each other, romance, and floating hearts. Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know how you're doing, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	96. I Hope You Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding celebration, including plenty of mushiness, continues, with a couple of surprises. Another amazing banner by PaganBaby too!!

* * *

 

After Andrew’s meal – which did include a good portion of ‘bloody meat’ in the form of bacon-wrapped Filet Mignon – had been served, thoroughly enjoyed, and the empty plates cleared, the DJ announced the father-daughter dance.

Buffy, still feeling like a real-life princess beneath the glittering stars in her lacy gown, took the floor with Giles as [Lee Ann Womack sang, ‘I Hope You Dance](https://youtu.be/RV-Z1YwaOiw).’

 

_I hope you never lose your sense of wonder_   
_You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger_   
_May you never take one single breath for granted_   
_God forbid love ever leave you empty handed_   
_I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean_   
_Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens_   
_Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance_   
_And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance_

_I hope you dance  
I hope you dance_

 

Buffy’s heart melted and hot tears stung her eyes as she stepped into his arms. Her Watcher. Her protector. Her father. Not by blood, but by love.

How was it that in all their years together, she’d never danced with Giles? She had trained with him, and snoozed through musty books with him, she’d strategized with him, laughed with him and cried with him, fought with him and against him – but this simple gesture of affection had never been shared between them before. Perhaps that’s how it was meant to be. This one moment crystalized in her memory, like a diamond in her soul, so special that she knew she would never forget it, that the deepfelt emotions it aroused would not fade with the passage of time.

“Do you fully appreciate how proud I am of you?” Giles asked as the song continued and they danced to the gently lilting music and heartfelt lyrics.

A sob shook Buffy’s shoulders as the tears she’d been holding back reasserted themselves. “I … guess,” she stammered back, trying her best to get her emotions back under control.

_I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance_   
_Never settle for the path of least resistance_   
_Livin' might mean takin' chances, but they're worth takin'_   
_Lovin' might be a mistake, but it's worth makin'_   
_Don't let some Hellbent heart leave you bitter_   
_When you come close to sellin' out, reconsider_   
_Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance_   
_And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance_

Giles smiled gently and pulled her into a closer embrace as the song continued, her damp cheek resting against the lapel of his non-tweed jacket. “No father could ever be prouder of you than I am, Buffy. If your mother were here, I know she’d feel the same. You have faced literal gods, been to heaven and through hell, experienced losses and challenges that would’ve crushed a weaker person. And yet, here you are … clearly flourishing, uncrushed.”

Buffy snorted against him, still swaying slowly to the song, his arms strong and reassuring around her. “Gotta say, last night I felt like I couldn’t get any more crushed. Like a crazed, cranky Crash Bandicoot in the middle of a crush-a-thon, only, you know, with eyebrows on fleek.”

 

_I hope you dance_

_(Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along)  
I hope you dance_

 

Giles shook his head, giving her a slightly tighter squeeze as they continued the dance. “You are the furthest thing from a …err … Bandicoot, my dear. You do not have to be perfect to be … well … perfect in the eyes of everyone who loves you. And you are loved, deeply. I believe you simply need to allow yourself a small bit of space to be perfectly imperfect, Buffy.”

Buffy blinked fast, swallowing hard, willing her tears back to a trickle from the waterfall that welled up. “You don’t think I’m a disaster? The demolition derby queen of horrible mothers who hides in the bathroom while her husband has to comfort her frightened kids? The cray-cray Slayer who can’t even stop a drunken dimwit in her own backyard?!”

 

_I hope you dance_

_(Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder)  
I hope you dance _

_(Where those years have gone?)_

 

Giles huffed out a small, sad chuckle. “No, my dear, I do not. I think that may, perhaps, simply bring you down closer to the level of the rest of us humans. You have always relied on your friends for support and assistance in your Calling; why, then, do you believe that the rest of your life would be any different?

“Your husband is quite capable of comforting his children, and your friends are equally capable of lending a hand to stop a dimwitted drunk. You are not alone, Buffy. You never have been.  Let those who love you help you. Just because you’re older doesn’t mean that practice should change. It only makes me more proud of you, dear. You are an amazing woman, and asking for help when you need it is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a sign of maturity.”

Buffy nodded against him, giving up her fight to hold back her emotions and letting her tears fall. Thank God for waterproof mascara or forget Crash Bandicoot, this would be a Rocky Raccoon disaster!

“Mature? Is that another way of saying I’m getting old?” she burbled out through her tears.

Giles genuinely laughed at that, a soft, warm rumble in his chest that vibrated against Buffy’s ear and right down into her heart. “Yes, that is the entire point of this conversation. You are old, clearly crumbling toward ramshackle decrepit-ness even as we speak.”

Buffy nodded against his chest again as she swallowed her tears down and sniffed back her insecurities and fears. “I thought that’s what you meant. Your stuffy Britishness is getting easier to decipher,” she admitted, but her tone had turned less forlorn and more teasing.

_I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean_   
_Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens_   
_Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance_   
_And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance_

_Dance_

 

“Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that after all these years you can finally interpret my meanings properly,” Giles replied as the song began to fade.

With his hands gripping her shoulders lightly, he pulled back and looked into her shimmering, green eyes. Eyes that had seen too many tears over the years, too much heartbreak. But now, even through her tears, there was joy hidden in their depths, a peaceful conviction that the fears and uncertainty that had been thrust upon her with the return of Riley Finn would be conquered. All would be well again, whole and happy, with the help of her friends, of her husband and children, of all the people she loved and who loved her.

_I hope you dance  
I hope you dance_

_(Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along)  
I hope you dance _

_(Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder?)_

 

“I love you, Buffy. You remain my greatest pride and joy,” he whispered as the music slipped into silence.

More tears leaked from her eyes and stole down her cheeks to drip slowly onto her lace gown. “I love you, too,” she rasped out through her too-tight throat. “I couldn’t have asked for a better man to be my guide in life.”

She paused a moment before adding, “Even if you do think I’m old and that my foundation’s crumbling. Hate to point this out, but that makes you a geriatric dinosaur with one foot in the tarpit.”

Giles laughed and pulled her back into a tight hug, which she returned fiercely, drawing a muffled gasp from the geriatric dinosaur.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 

As the photographer clicked away, Spike’s hand rested over Buffy’s on the pearl-handled knife and, as one, they sliced into the bottom layer of the wedding cake. Annie and William flanked them, eager and excited for the pièce de résistance of the night – dessert!

The cake was made in three layers, decorated with smooth, white chocolate ganache icing and embellished with red fondant hearts that curved their way up in a wavy river from the bottom to the top. At the top, they met a red topper that proclaimed ‘Love’ with a spray of similar hearts that shot up off the top on silver wires like fireworks. Circling the base of each layer were black and silver ‘pearls’ made of more fondant. Apparently cakes, like tuxes, needed cummerbunds so you couldn’t see where the layers met. Sitting comfortably on the bottom layer, their feet dangling down over the side, were two blonde figures holding hands, the man in a black tux, the woman in a white gown holding a red bouquet of roses.  Each layer of the cake was a different flavor: chocolate on the bottom, red velvet in the middle, and traditional white cake on the top.

Of course, Spike and Buffy were cutting into the chocolate layer, Buffy’s, as well as the kids’, personal favorite. As the knife sliced cleanly through and touched the base the cake was sitting on, red hearts, like the ones decorating the cake only larger, began to float up like soap-bubbles from the blade. Buffy and Spike both gasped and jumped back. Buffy pulled the knife away from Spike and brandished it at the golf-ball sized heart-demons while Spike grabbed the children and pulled them away from whatever this new threat was.

As Buffy waved the knife, more of the floating hearts emerged from it, following behind the blade in a wave of red, semi-translucent bubbles of love.

“It’s okay! I’m sorry! I forgot! It’s just a charm!” Willow announced, trying to push herself up from her chair. “Oh, my gosh! I’m sorry! I forgot to tell you!!”

Buffy looked at her friend in exasperation, but relaxed as she waved the knife through the air like a conductor’s baton, the shiny, red hearts flowing from it like a line of soap bubbles, floating around her.   Annie came up and touched one and it burst with a little ‘ _pop’_ , leaving the scent of cinnamon-y Red Hots in its wake. Annie touched her finger to her lips and her eyes went wide with glee. It even tasted like Red Hots!

The ceremonial knife had a rounded end and the edge was about as sharp as a spoon, so Buffy handed the enchanted knife to her daughter. The girl squealed in delight and danced away from her parents, waving the wand … errr, I mean the _knife_ over her head, spreading the Red Hots heart bubbles from table to table, engulfing the whole celebration with the floating symbol of love.

Spike came back up to stand next to Buffy watching their daughter trail the magical, floating hearts around the floor, twirling and spinning like one of those gymnasts who danced with a long, flowing ribbon. William poked a finger into heart after heart as they bobbed around in the air, sucking the hot, spice of cinnamon from his finger each time until his mouth and tongue were stained red.

Soon, the whole area was covered in the glistening, floating heart bubbles and everyone gazed around at them in awe and wonder. After a few minutes, the last few hearts plopped drunkenly from the knife, their shape lopsided and more blob-like than heart-shaped when the enchantment finally fizzled. Annie twirled back to her parents, giddy with the fun of having spread them all, and returned the knife so they could finish cutting the cake.

“Any more surprises?” Buffy asked Willow before resetting the knife against the cake.

“None, I promise!” Willow assured her, holding up her hands as if to show she had no more tricks up her sleeveless dress.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike carefully placed a bite of the dark, chocolatey cake in Buffy’s mouth, taking pains to not drop any on her lacey gown. As he began to pull his fingers away, she grasped his wrist and held it in place, thoroughly licking and sucking every bit of icing from his digits, and drawing a few whistles of appreciation from their rowdier friends.

Spike smirked at her when she finally released his hand. “Best save some o’ that for later, luv,” he advised her quietly.

Buffy bobbed her brows at him suggestively. “Plenty more where that came from,” she assured him, grinning.

Buffy lifted up a piece of the cake for him with her fingers, but wasn’t quite as careful with it as he had been. More than a little of the frosting coated his lips as she offered it to him, perhaps more than could have happened by simple accident. When she pulled her hand away, he tried to capture the sweet white chocolate goodness with his tongue and keep any from falling onto his tux. Just as his tongue darted out, her lips covered his, her tongue joining the mission of icing control and containment.

She moaned against him, their tongues dancing, covered in the sweet silkiness of the icing. More whistles and a few catcalls erupted from their friends, making Buffy laugh against his lips as she endeavored to remove the sugary-goodness from his skin. Their children, however, were less enthusiastic with this display, with Annie groaning, “Mooommm,” in a disapproving tone while William moaned, “Ewwwww,” and scrunched up his nose in revulsion.

They separated reluctantly, eyes glittering with joy and their bodies thrumming with pent-up desire. Buffy sucked her own fingers into her mouth one by one, removing the lingering bits of icing from them, her eyes locked on Spike’s as she did so. A low moan of need rumbled from his chest as he licked his lips hungrily, removing any remaining icing from the corners of his mouth as he watched her intently.

“You’re gonna bloody pay for that, Slayer,” he whispered in a tone only she could hear.

Her grin widened. “Promises, promises,” she replied in a teasing rasp as Tobias came up to begin cutting and serving the remainder of the cake to their guests.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

The flames of the candles danced from the sand, flickering a golden glow over the whole beach, and the fairy lights twinkled and shone, illuminating the floor in soft, white light. Willow’s enchanted cinnamon hearts continued to float around a few feet off the floor, the soft light glinting gayly off their shiny surfaces. The stars glittered down from a clear sky above, the universe gazing down in awe at the joy and laughter that floated up from the celebration.

All was right with the world as music played from the DJ’s speakers and everyone danced into the night as the reception continued.

Spike, as always, was a popular partner, rarely getting a chance to sit down before another Slayer, Watcher, or friend was asking for a turn around the floor. He tried to avoid Faith, but got trapped by her twice, though he managed to keep her hands off his arse … mostly.  A couple of times when he thought he might wander off into the shadows for a bit of rest, Annie caught him and begged him to dance with her. How could he refuse?

Buffy danced with Nick, Xander, Oz, Wes, and even Angel, though she did keep a wary eye out in case Spike decided that was a ‘dust-worthy’ offense. Clem turned out to be a wonderful dancer, too! Who knew!? He led her through a spirited [1950s Bop to Danny and The Juniors’ song ‘At the Hop’](https://youtu.be/HIXMKA7d4to) which stole the show. He was very light on his feet with moves that rivaled some of Spike’s best, leaving Buffy laughing and gasping for breath by the end.

Vi led the whole group through a couple of country line dances, which had everyone laughing and stomping and often grape-vining the wrong way, bumping into each other. For the first time in over a century, Spike and Angel were of the same mind, and both steadfastly refused to take part in that debacle. Instead, they stood on the sidelines watching the fracas and making snide remarks about scooting boots, crawling watermelons, and aching, breaking hearts. 

“What are you two doing?” Buffy asked walking up to the two men, still a bit breathless and laughing from nearly bashing Faith in the face with her fist while twirling her invisible lasso during her boot boogieing. Faith had blocked the blow, then swung her fist, with her own imaginary lasso, back at Buffy’s nose. The two of them ended up doing a bit of a solo act in the center of the group when Buffy ducked, yanked her arm out of Faith’s grasp and twisted away from Faith, who had reflexively swept a leg out to trip the other Slayer. Luckily – or not – Buffy jumped over the kick and the two managed to fall back into step with the others on the stompy part.

Spike smirked. “Watchin’ you trying to take out the enormous git’s tart. Should’a been a bit faster, pet – could’ve bloodied her good and proper.”

Buffy shrugged. “Have to follow the beat, Spike … geez, you know that!

“And … that’s all you’re doing?” Buffy asked suspiciously, looking from Spike to Angel and back again.

“What else would we be doin’?” Spike replied innocently.

“I don’t know …” Buffy drawled out slowly, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “I don’t think I’ve seen you two standing together talking for more than ten seconds before without fangs and stakes breaking out.”

“Don’t have a stake, do I?” Spike reminded her, shrugging.

“Angel?” she challenged, shifting her gaze to the vampire.

He shrugged. “Like the idiot said, thought you two might get into it … draw blood. Didn’t want to miss that, you know, vampire and all. It’s a thing.”

“ _Hmph_ ,” Buffy grunted, unconvinced. 

“Dance, pet?” Spike offered, extending a hand toward her.

Buffy bit her bottom lip, looking between the two, still dubious, but took Spike’s hand. “Sure …” she agreed absently, trying to figure out just what those two could be talking about for so long without fisticuffs breaking out.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

When the DJ announced the last dance, Spike pulled away from his conversation with Oz about which sport would be the funniest to add large, mandatory amounts of alcohol to. Oz thought platform diving – extra points if they fell off the platform, belly-flopped, and didn’t die. Spike picked couples ice skating, assuming it's an actual couple doing the skating and all of their relationship issues get played out on the ice.

“All fun and games until someone gets their jugular sliced,” Oz pointed out.

“Couples Ice Fightin’ t’ music,” Spike sighed wistfully. “I’d watch the hell outta that!”

Buffy had already started heading over to him at the DJ’s announcement, and he met her in the middle of the floor just as the music began to play. Buffy had stopped moving when the music began, looking at him with a mixture of confusion and amusement.

“This isn’t what we picked …” she began as he pulled her into his arms and began to sway to the slow beat.

He didn’t answer her, but instead began to hum and then sing softly against her ear, “ _It must have been cold there in my shadow, to never have sunlight on your face. You were content to let me shine, that's your way. You always walked a step behind.”_

((  [Wind Beneath My Wings, Bette Midler](https://youtu.be/jorJh8DTMVM) ))

 

“Spike,” Buffy whispered, her chest tightening as her heart swelled with love. “You didn’t have to…”

“I know, my love. But I also know it wasn’t the spell, do I not?” he replied softly as they danced, the floor filled now with couples all swaying to the slow music.

Buffy bit her bottom lip, blinking back her emotions, and nodded gently against his chest.

_So I was the one with all the glory,_   
_While you were the one with all the strength._   
_A beautiful face without a name for so long._   
_A beautiful smile to hide the pain._

 

“This is your day, Buffy. Your dream. Your fairy tale. You’ve waited too long to not have every single thing absolutely perfect, my darling princess,” he soothed against her, his voice a deep rumble against her ear.

_Did you ever know that you're my hero,_   
_And everything I would like to be?_   
_I can fly higher than an eagle,_   
_For you are the wind beneath my wings._

 

“William … I … we …” she stammered, before pulling back and looking up into his adoring eyes. “Thank you,” she settled on finally. “You know you always lift me up, pull me out of the darkness … always my hero.”

Spike smiled down at her before pulling her back against him as they swayed gently in the flowing sea of friends and family that surrounded them on the dance floor. “And you, my love, are my hero, the light in the darkness, the wind beneath my wings,” he vowed gently. “And my fairy princess.”

Buffy snorted against him, grinning. Something new to add to her résumé: Fairy Princess. That was one she never thought she’d ever be able to claim as a Slayer. But here she was, a princess in the arms of her prince.

_It might have appeared to go unnoticed,_   
_But I've got it all here in my heart._   
_I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it._   
_I would be nothing without you._

 

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 

Spike and Buffy made their way through the rain of birdseed to the stairs leading up to the house, ducking automatically as their friends pelted them with the well-wishes disguised as millet. With the red cinnamon heart bubbles still bobbing around, they ran hand-in-hand up the stairs and finally made it out of the downpour. Buffy could feel the small seeds slide down her bodice and lodge itchily between and beneath her breasts. No one ever mentioned that to her before, not even Anya! The ex-demon can tell her kids what ‘fuck’ means but neglects to tell her about the boob-seed phenomenon?  Some people!

Ignoring the good-luck seeds – which weren’t feeling particularly lucky to Buffy at the moment – they stopped on the first landing, about ten feet above the beach and dance floor below. The eligible bachelorettes gathered below as Spike stood back and Buffy raised the bouquet, preparing to toss it down to them.

Buffy noticed that Dawn wasn’t in the group of ladies below and she swept her eyes over the rest of the floor, looking for her. She found her sister smiling up at her, standing arm-in-arm with Nick, back with the other married couples. Dawn lifted her left hand, displaying the engagement ring and Buffy felt a small pang of remorse. In her long-ago dreams of this day, Buffy always thought Dawn would be the one to catch her bouquet, but Dawn was engaged now and apparently had decided to not participate.

On one level, Buffy understood, but it still brought a little stab of disappointment to her heart. Buffy sighed to herself but returned Dawn’s smile. It was silly to feel bad; Dawn was happy and Nick was a good guy, and catching a silly bouquet wasn’t really that important in the grand scheme of things.

With a couple of dozen Red Hot hearts still floating around her and Spike, Buffy turned her back on the group. In the next moment she tossed the red roses back and up into the night sky. She heard shoes clicking on the wood floor, scrambling toward the falling flowers and thought belatedly that having a bunch of Slayers going for a bouquet could be a really dangerous idea. She heard someone squeak, as if in surprise and turned around to see what had happened.

Directly below her Amanda stood holding the bouquet above her head, dancing around in victory and beaming widely. It reminded Buffy immediately of the day she’d made the Potentials a team, of them all ganging up on her to allow one of their ranks, Amanda, to retrieve the sword that Buffy had been guarding. A warm glow replaced that dash of remorse that Dawn hadn’t been the one to catch it as Buffy realized how much different life is as a Slayer now than when she’d been Called. Amanda had been a Slayer for ten years. And she still had a life. She had friends. She had a boyfriend. She had a future. And now she had a portent of wedded bliss, something previous Slayers, like Buffy, had been afraid to even dream of. It made Buffy’s heart swell in her chest to know that she had had a hand in that, in giving these girls a future, a chance to make their dreams, no matter what they were, come true.

“Buffy!” Dawn called from beyond the commotion directly below her.

Buffy looked up and saw Dawn waving something red and blue in the air at her. Her brows furrowed as Spike stepped back to her side. “What is it?” she asked him, trying to figure out what Dawn had.

Spike snorted. “Spider-Man,” he told her. “He flew out o’ the middle of it when you tossed it up. Nearly hit ‘er in the face, it did. She managed t’ get her hands up and catch him just in time.”

Buffy laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. “What does that mean, I wonder? She’ll be the next one to be bitten by a radioactive spider?”

Spike laughed. “Reckon it just means Junior’s not gettin’ his action figure back, cos that girl loves Spidey more than he does.”

Buffy and Spike waved down to everyone on the floor below before turning and heading up the stairs to the house, hand in hand, both of them feeling light as feathers, happy as, well, newlyweds on their wedding night.

Spike pulled Buffy to a stop outside the open French doors of the veranda and scooped her up into his arms. “Was this bit in your dream when you were a lass?” Spike wondered as Buffy laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck.

She bit her lip, barely containing the grin that threatened to split her face. “Every cheesy tradition ever known to bride-dom was in my dream,” she admitted. “So … yeah.”

Spike kissed her as he stepped over the threshold with his bride, stopping just inside the door to enjoy the taste of cake and champagne and Buffy. When the kiss broke, she whispered against his lips, “Is that part of the tradition?”

“Is now,” he breathed back as he continued into the house with her still in his arms.

He didn’t stop until they were up in their room, then he finally set her back onto her feet. With the door closed and bolted behind them, Spike turned and drew Mrs. Pratt back into his arms. Buffy melted into him, her body molding to his as if made for that alone. Their lips touched, soft, gentle, tender. A kiss. A nibble. A lick. Soft breath. Loving desire. Amorous moans.

When the first loud explosion burst outside their window, Buffy jumped, her heart lurching suddenly in her chest.

Spike pulled her against him tightly, tucking her head beneath his chin. “It’s just fireworks, luv.”

Buffy nodded, taking a deep breath, letting herself soak in the warmth, the love, the protection, the strength of her husband. “I’m okay. It just … startled me for some reason. I knew, of course – duh! They cost enough – but … I guess I forgot. Just caught me off-guard.”

“My kiss, no doubt,” Spike asserted. “Made better girls than you forget their own names, it has.”

Buffy laughed against him, pulling back to look up into his eyes. “Has anyone ever told you how humble you are?”

Spike furrowed his brow in thought a moment. “Have t’ give me a bit, I’m sure I’ll think o’ someone,” he teased, before turning, capturing her hand in his and leading her out onto the balcony. 

Another loud bang echoed off the house around them as a bright red fountain of sparkles burst in the air above the water just behind their house. The soft calls of ‘oooo’ and ‘aaaah’ drifted up to them from their guests down on the beach as everyone looked up at the display.

Spike pulled her back to his front and wrapped his arms around her as they stood in the cool air and watched the colorful fireworks burst and crackle and whistle in the air just a couple hundred yards from where they stood. There were white sparkling ones that bloomed skyward like flowers or fluttered down like weeping willows, and red ones that whirled in curly-cues, and multi-colored ones that just kept bursting forth with new colors every second or so.

Buffy smiled and leaned back against him as they watched the beautiful designs glitter and dance against the dark night sky.

“Happy re-wedding, my beautiful wife,” Spike whispered against her ear.

“Happy re-wedding to you, my sweet husband,” Buffy replied softly as music began to drift up to them from the beach below while the fireworks continued to burst and glitter seemingly just for them.

 

{{   [Save the Last Dance for Me, The Drifters](https://youtu.be/n-XQ26KePUQ) }}

_“You can dance every dance with the guy,_   
_“Who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight,_   
_“You can smile-every smile for the man,_   
_“Who held your hand ‘neath the pale moon light,_

_“But don't forget who's takin' you home,_   
_“And in whose arms you're gonna be,_   
_“So darlin' save the last dance for me.”_

 

“Oh, Spike …” she sighed, her heart filling even fuller, if that was possible, as the music floated up on the breeze to their private dance floor.  It was the song that they’d agreed on for the ‘last dance’, the one that he’d replaced with ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’.

“May I have this dance?” he whispered against her ear, his body already swaying to the slow beat, his breath warm and soft, sending a delicious shiver of longing down her spine.

“Every dance is yours … forever,” she promised softly as she turned in his arms. And they danced, their bodies moving together as one, hard lines and soft curves, strong and gentle, love and desire melding into one perfect moment.

The stars shone down on their small balcony, twinkling with the blessings of the heavens. The bursts of the fireworks display danced over them in dazzling shades of color and bright sparkles of light. The cool breeze off the ocean slipped over their skin like gentle caresses. And the music drifted to them, encompassing them within its sphere of memory, of meaning, and the promise they made to each other so many years ago.

_“Oh, I know, that the music’s fine,_   
_“Like sparklin' wine, go and have your fun,_   
_“Laugh and sing, but while we're apart,_   
_“Don't give your heart to anyone,_

_“But don't forget who's takin' you home,_   
_“And in whose arms you're gonna be,_   
_“So darlin' save the last dance for me.”_

 

Buffy lifted her mouth up to his again, her arms around his neck, Spike’s hands resting familiarly on her hips, their bodies pressed together, moving as one, lost in the night, in the music, in the lights and in the love they shared.

As the ‘grand finale’ of the brilliant light display began to explode with a rapid succession of detonations, bathing them in dazzling hues of color that had no names, Mr. and Mrs. Pratt’s lips met again in a perfect, ethereal kiss.

Number twenty.

 

_“Baby, don't you know I love you so,_   
_“Can't you feel it when we touch?_   
_“I will never, never let you go,_   
_“I love you oh so much,_

_“Oh, baby, won't you save the last dance for me?_   
_“Ooh, you make a promise,_   
_“That you'll save the last dance for me,_   
_“Save the last dance,_   
_“The very last dance, for me.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked the ceremony and reception -- and isn't that BANNER the bomb!? Seriously! PB keeps outdoing herself!
> 
> Next up: the wedding night.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know your thoughts and feelings, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	97. The First Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wedding Night.
> 
> Another amazing banner by PaganBaby!!

* * *

 

With the sounds of the celebration dying, the music over, and the fireworks little more than wisps of smoke in the dark sky, Mr. and Mrs. Pratt closed the balcony doors, retiring into the tranquil cocoon of their room. Dawn and Nick would be taking care of the kids tonight; the rest of their guests would make themselves at home. There was nothing else for the newly re-married couple to do now but be together.

Buffy hadn’t really taken everything in when they’d come into the room, her attention had been captured by a certain humble blond with amazing kisses. Vases of red roses were scattered around the area, covering nearly every flat surface, the air filled with their sweet scent. Those places that didn’t have vases of roses were glowing with flickering, white pillar candles. The covers had been turned down on the bed, and it, too, was covered in roses … well, in rose petals. They stood out brightly against the white sheets beneath, each petal a crimson island in the sea of shimmering satin.

Behind her, Spike flipped a switch and the lights in the room went off, leaving them bathed in the soft golden glow of the candles.

He came up behind her as she stood near the bed and wrapped his arms around her gently. His lips touched down on the side of her neck, nuzzling through her wind-swept hair. A tingle of desire rippled through Buffy and she moaned, letting her eyes fall closed as she leaned back into him, her hands resting over his where they encircled her body.

“Satin and lace and soft feathers to lie in,” Spike whispered against her heated skin.  “I love you, and I would lay with you in candlelight atop a bed of roses or not at all.”

Buffy smiled and tears sprang to her eyes, her chest tightening with emotion. It’s what William had told her so long ago – before their vows of marriage, when the soul was burning him so painfully. He had told her how, though he wanted her so badly, he wouldn’t take her in the dirt, that she deserved so much more.

“It’s perfect … it’s what you promised,” she replied softly as he continued to kiss and suckle the warm skin of her neck.

“I always try to keep my promises, my love. I know I’m not perfect, but I always try, for you, Buffy.”

“You’re perfect,” she assured him. “To me, you’re perfect.”

Spike pulled his hands from around her and stepped back a bit, beginning to unbutton the thousands of buttons that snaked up the back of her gown. With each one he opened, he touched a kiss to her bronze skin, sending more shivers of desire traveling up and down her spine.

Buffy then noticed a folded square of paper on her pillow and she reached for it, opening it as Spike continued his slow seduction down her back.

Buffy’s vision blurred as she read his ‘I Still Do’ poem, her heart floating up into her throat as she blinked back her emotions, not sure how she could love him more, but unable to deny that she did.

“I still you, too,” Buffy whispered through her tight throat as Spike reached the last of the long line of satiny buttons down her back. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” she wondered, turning around to face him.

Spike snorted softly, giving her one of those sweet, shy smiles that she wanted to just fall into and roll around in for a while. “You believed in me,” he rasped out, his voice full of emotion as his eyes locked on hers.

Buffy laid her palm against his cheek and he leaned into her touch, closing his eyes and letting himself get lost in the feel of her love. Her lips touched his, tender and soft and chaste. “I believed in you because you’re a good man … you’ve always been a good man, William.”

Spike shook his head slowly, opening his eyes again. “You made me better than I was.”

It was Buffy’s turn to smile then and shake her head, but she didn’t argue with him, instead she pondered, “If I did all that, I wonder why I can’t get you to pick up your towels?”

Spike let out a deep, rumbling chuckle. “Thought you said I was perfect, luv.”

Buffy bit back a grin, capturing her lower lip with her teeth. “Well … _mostly_ perfect,” she amended as she tugged on his tie, pulling out the careful knot that Sam had put in so many hours ago.

Her hands began unbuttoning his shirt slowly and deliberately. She gave his skin the same treatment as he’d given hers, with soft brushes of her lips against his tanned flesh as each new swath of his skin was revealed.

Soft moans and sighs filled the room, mingling with the flickering candlelight and sweet scent of roses. Whispered words caught in throats, fingertips roamed tenderly over trembling flesh, lips touched soft kisses against previously hidden skin as clothes were shed in a sensuous dance of love and desire. Each scrap of fabric and lace slid away from quivering bodies in a ceremony of reverence and devotion until all that was left were the gleaming tokens of their love:  skull rings and wedding bands and the sparkling promises of infinity and eternal love.

Birdseed spilled from Buffy’s dress and Spike’s shoes as they were removed, bouncing and skittering across the hardwood floor, drawing laughter from the bride and groom. “Food for the fluffy bunnies of dust that live under the bed,” Buffy decided, shrugging.

“Best not let Anya hear ya say that,” Spike advised as he gently settled her dress over his tux on a chair. “She’ll be in here attackin’ with brooms and Hoovers … bollixing up our wedding night bliss.”

Buffy drew her fingers across her lips as if zipping them, giggling at the truth of Spike’s contention.

“Love you so much, pet,” Spike vowed, his blue eyes dancing with amusement, a soft smile on his lips as he tilted his head watching her laugh. He loved it when she laughed, it was like a sunbeam lighting his soul with joy.

“I love you, too,” Buffy replied, still smiling as she touched another kiss to his full, sumptuous lips.

Spike scooped her up into his arms again, never breaking the kiss, and set her down gently in the center of the bed, atop the lightly-scented rose petals. The soft petals clung to her warm skin, as if they, like Spike, longed to be one with her. His weight dipped the mattress as he joined her, his body hovering over her, suspended by strong arms.

He dipped his lips to hers again, touching them against her damp skin as he whispered, “Tell me what you want, my love.”

Buffy cupped his face in her hands, pressing him back so she could see his eyes. “You always seem to ask me that,” she pointed out gently.

“Because I always want to give you everything you want,” Spike replied, his body still hovering over hers, only her hands on his face and their gazes touching.

“What do _you_ want?” she asked softly, letting her fingers wander over his cheekbones, up to his scarred brow, and across his forehead, lightly caressing every part of his handsome face. “Because that’s what I want.”

Spike didn’t answer for a moment, his head tilting as he considered her. Finally, he answered, his voice husky with emotion, his accent fading to that of his youth, “I want to make love to you like this was our first time. Worship your body as a prince would worship his princess … as a husband would his wife when he first touches her on their wedding night.”

Buffy gave him a watery smile, though the emotions he stirred in her pooled in her eyes, blurring her vision. “That sounds perfect,” she rasped through a tight throat. “That’s what I want to give to you, too.”

Spike touched his lips down to her damp eyes and Buffy closed her lids as he kissed each one in turn. Then his soft kisses were raining gently down over her face, her nose, her cheeks, her chin, her jaw. There was no rush to the movements, no frantic lust or unrestrained need. There was gentleness and love and devotion and respect. They were the actions of a man full of adulation and gentle honor, a man savoring every kiss, every touch, every sigh and moan as if he’d never heard them or felt them before.

Spike lowered his body against her gently as he worked his way down her flushed, beautiful body with light touches and soft kisses. He nuzzled against her neck, exploring every bit of it as if he’d never known it before. When she gasped and moaned, and he felt her body quiver beneath him, he stopped moving his mouth, licking and kissing that magical spot for what seemed hours as tremors of desire rolled over her.

Her hands roamed also, over bulging muscles and soft skin. She trailed her nails down his back and then the soft pads of her fingers danced back up, feeling his hips twitch against her as she did. She cupped the round globes of his ass, so firm and tight and powerful, and his body tensed with desire.

Soft words of love and encouragement and desire were whispered against warm flesh, fluttering in the thick, sweet air of the room like butterflies taking flight.

Spike continued his exploration down her body, his fingers tracing over her collarbones, his lips traveling down to her round breasts. He took his time, teasing her to the very edge of lucidity, with soft caresses, kisses, suckles, and nibbles against her sensitive skin. Her nipples hardened, yearning for more beneath his tongue and lips. He could see her soft breasts jumping with every pounding beat of her heart – so beautiful. He felt like he could watch that all night, mesmerized like a cobra in front of a snake charmer.

Her soft moan of need broke him from the trance and he began moving again, slipping down her body, running his hands over the curve of her waist as his mouth traveled down, licking and kissing and nipping at her quavering stomach. He was careful not to tickle, this wasn’t the time for that, though he felt her jerk a time or two just on the verge of it. He smiled against her damp skin, relishing every moan and gasp and twitch of her glorious body. His wife’s body. His wife. _His_.

He settled back onto his heels between her tan, shapely legs and slid a finger gently between her swollen labia. Buffy gasped and jerked as his finger raked over her clit, gathering up her slick desire as he continued down, across her throbbing opening and then back again. He lifted his dripping finger to his lips and inhaled the scent of her longing, of her desire before tasting her essence.

Buffy watched him, her need growing by leaps and bounds with every passing moment. Watched him inhale her, then taste her. Watched as his eyes closed and he sucked his finger between those luscious lips. Watched as he moaned his approval as if he’d never tasted such ambrosia before.

Was this really what it would’ve been like if he had been her first, if this had been her first time? She fairly vibrated with desire, every cell in her body seemed on the verge of exploding, and he hadn’t even been inside her yet. She knew he could make her cum with his tongue, with his fingers, with his sweet lips … is that how it should’ve been her first time?  She wasn’t that girl any longer, that nervous fear of the unknown wasn’t churning inside her, but …

Spike slid back and lowered himself between her legs, tilting her hips up with his hands beneath her ass. As his tongue delved between her lips, circling her clit with unbearable tenderness, Buffy’s thoughts were driven from her mind.  He moaned, his lips vibrating against her sensitive skin, drinking her down while lifting her higher and higher. A finger slipped into her, slowly, gently, exploring her pulsing channel as he sucked down on her clit harder. Buffy’s body began to spasm, her mind blank but for the rapture of his touch, the delight of his soft moans filling her ears, the perfume of the roses infusing her senses with sweet euphoria.

And she was there, on the edge of the world, on that razor’s edge between heaven and Earth. She floated there as she’d done a million times before, but somehow it felt different this time. This time that should’ve been her first time, with the man who would give anything for her, who loved her like no other.

Spike’s handsome face filled her vision, his blue eyes delving into hers as she fell into space, into the heaven of his love, which always, _always_ caught her. There were no rocks to crash on, there was only this, only his arms around her, only his love pouring over her, only his heart joined with hers.

Spike’s tongue slid down and dipped into her throbbing chalice of bliss, feeling her body ripple and jerk beneath him. She’d barely remembered how to breathe again when he began to delve into her deeper with his tongue, tasting her, pleasing her, pouring his love and desire over her like a soft, warm blanket of joy.

Her hips lifted up to meet his mouth, her body still tingling and quivering from the heaven she was still floating back from. His name drifted through the thick air, slipping from her lips in a gentle river of adoration and pleasure. Her hands reached for him, just able to touch his strong shoulders as he began slowly fucking her with his tongue, tasting every drop of her, feeling every twitch and squeeze and spasm of pleasure deep inside her.

Did she know how much he loved her? Did she have any idea how he worshiped her? Did she really understand that he was her willing slave? For he was. Always. Forever. Hers.

Buffy gasped again, her body bowing beneath him and he raked the tip of his tongue over that place deep inside her that sent quivering bolts of bliss flooding through her body. Her cries to God began and then died as her breath was whisked away in a waterfall of rapture. She jerked her hips against his mouth, her body lost in the throes of heaven that Spike was pouring over her as he gave her every ounce of love within his heart. Her thighs closed, tightening around his ears, out of her control, as she came beneath him, floating and falling and dancing in the depths of his adoration.

As soon as her trembling legs released him, Spike slid up her flushed, slick body and kissed her deeply, ardently, letting her taste herself on his tongue and lips.

Buffy moaned against him, wrapping her arms and legs around his body, holding him to her as she returned the kiss just as fervently.

“Please, Spike … please … I need you,” she gasped against his lips, the taste of her cum tangy and salty on her own tongue.

Spike smiled down on her, his lips touching down on her still closed lids. “And I need you,” he whispered against her glowing skin as he shifted and guided his hardness to her slick, pulsing opening.

Buffy blinked her eyes open, meeting his soft gaze with her own. Her pupils were dilated, almost no color showing in their depths, only that small hint of hazel glittered in the candlelight.

“I wouldn’t have hurt you, Buffy,” he whispered as he slid inside her, so slowly, so gently.

Buffy bit her lip and nodded slightly as her heart skipped and skittered in her chest. “I know,” she replied, getting lost in the feel of him filling her, opening her to his girth, slipping tenderly into her supple depths.

Their hips met, their bodies joined once again in heavenly bliss. Spike lowered down atop her gently and wrapped his arms around her, holding her in an embrace of pure love.

“I love you so much, William,” Buffy breathed against his ear as she clung to him with arms and legs wrapped around his strong shoulders and slim hips. “More than words, more than there are stars in the sky … more than …”

“Chocolate?” Spike suggested.

Buffy chuckled beneath him, the sound of it like the lilting song of angels to his ears. “Well, let’s not get carried away.”

Spike laughed and lifted up to look down at her again. His bottom lip pulled seductively between his teeth, a boyish gleam in his bluer than blue eyes. “Well, I reckon I’ll just have to see what I can do to change your mind on that, pet.”

Buffy grinned, wagging her brows invitingly. “I can’t wait,” she teased.

Spike dipped his head down, nibbling gently at her neck, working his way slowly to that spot he knew made her shiver and moan in pleasure.

“Oh, God … that’s … a great … start,” she gasped out as Spike’s hips began to move against her at the same time. “Keep going …”

“Intend to,” he purred against her tingling skin, grinding down on her clit with his pubic bone deliberately before pulling back, nearly out of her clutching channel before pushing back in again, just as unhurriedly as the first time.

His lips against her neck, his teeth nibbling her tender flesh there, the hard lines of his body pressing against her, the feel of his muscles flexing and relaxing beneath her hands, his cock swelling and pulsing with desire within her all combined into a heady cocktail of pleasure. Stir in the feel of rose petals clinging to her skin, their rich fragrance being released with every movement, the satin sheets beneath her, and the flickering candlelight that danced over their bodies, and chocolate, it seemed, was soon to be relegated to second place in Buffy’s heart.

There was no rush in their love-making, no feverish urgency. There were sighs and moans and whispers. There were stops and starts, moments where they simply held each other in the soft glow of the candles, and then began again. They shifted and turned, her atop and then below, slowly weaving their tapestry of rich and royal hues. Hands and lips caressed with tingling touches. There was gentle tenderness and a re-discovery of those little things that made hearts flutter and skin prickle with pleasure.  There was nothing but them, this moment, and the deep feelings of trust and love and the bone-deep physical attraction they shared. Her green eyes were like pools of emeralds; his, the breathtaking blue of the Aegean Sea. Her body a masterpiece of feminine curves; his a marblesque carving of sharp, masculine lines. The way he moved against her and the way she responded to his gentle shifts were graceful and lithe, their bodies parting and joining in the familiar, but somehow transformed, brand new dance.

When they fell together into the glittering nebulous of heaven, there were no screams or roars of release, but it was no less intense for the lack. Their bodies floated in a bed of roses, in each other’s arms, and in each other’s hearts with whispered vows and oaths and renewed promises of forever. Gasps and moans, quivering flesh and rapturous release marked their departure from the world, and sighs of utter contentment marked their return.  

No matter the dance, whether of life and death or love and devotion, whether frenzied and tempestuous or tender and graceful, whether new or old, atop rose petals and satin or in the sand beneath the stars, there was no doubt who they would be dancing with. Whether their first dance or their last, they had only one true partner in this dance called life. And, now, they lay in each other’s arms, floating in the love that they built, the love that withstood all challenges, the love that the universe could not pull asunder, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed their ‘first dance’. Thank you so much for reading! Please stop in and let me know your thoughts and feelings, I'd seriously love to hear from you! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	98. Viva Las Vegas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike take a road trip and clear the score on a ‘white lie’ they told years ago. Other adventures ensue…

* * *

 

“What are you guys eating?” Dawn asked as she staggered into the kitchen to find Annie and William apparently preparing their own breakfast the next morning.

Annie shrugged. “The top of the cake from last night. I found it in the freezer.”

“Annie! That’s supposed to be for your mom and dad to have next year on their anniversary,” Dawn explained, looking at the half-devoured top layer of the wedding cake that sat on the counter.

Annie and William both frowned. “That’s silly,” William contended, squirting a large portion of Hershey’s chocolate syrup on the part that Annie had given him. “Mommy won’t want it. It’s not even chocolate. Why do you think no one ate it last night?”

Dawn opened her mouth to try and explain the tradition, but shut it, just shaking her head. “Well, they’ll have to make due with half a freezer-burned cake, I guess,” she sighed, evening up the cut edges and re-wrapping it for the freezer.

“Where are your parents, anyway?” she asked.

“Gone,” Annie answered, taking the Hershey’s syrup from William and drowning her own white cake in it.

“Gone? Gone where?” Dawn asked as she poured herself a cup of much-needed coffee.

“They loped!” William explained, digging into his chocolate-soaked white cake.

“They … what?” Dawn asked, looking at Annie.

Annie shrugged and handed Dawn a note. “Mommy said they were gonna lope like before, but we could come on Tuesday and moon with them then.”

Dawn’s face contorted into confusion as she took the note and unfolded it. It was in Buffy’s writing,

_Dawnie,_

_Change of plans. Spike and I are eloping again for a couple of days. Thought you and Nick could bring the kids on Tuesday and meet us in Las Vegas, then we’ll do the family trip/honeymoon thing to the Grand Canyon that we had planned, just starting a couple of days later. I’ll call you when we get there and let you know where we’re staying._

_Sound good? Good!_

_Love you!_

_-Buffy_

_PS – Spike says to tell you there’s probably no gas in the minivan since I used it last – here’s my gas card so you can fill it up._

“Do they know what ‘eloping’ even means?” Dawn wondered, shaking her head as she put the credit card in her pocket.

“What does it mean?” William wondered, his mouth covered in sticky chocolate and cake crumbs.

“Apparently, it means getting married for a third time,” Dawn guessed.

“Maybe they’ll have chocolate cake to keep in the freezer from that one, then,” Annie suggested blithely, her own mouth fairly coated in syrup, as well.

Dawn shrugged, unwrapping the cake she’d just re-wrapped. “Well, they better, cos they aren’t gonna have any of this one. Pass the syrup … is there any ice cream?”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

A hot wind whipped over Buffy’s skin, drying the sweat that beaded there before it could soak into her light, flowery sundress. She had her bare feet propped up on the dashboard of Black Betty, sunglasses perched on her nose, and her hair in a messy bun to keep it from whipping around her face. Her hand surfed in the hot, desert air that sped past the window as she let herself get lost in the laid-back ‘road trip’ vibe.

They’d been driving for a several hours and were nearing their destination in the Nevada desert – Las Vegas. Spike, dressed in black jeans and tee, sang along with the song on the radio, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel in time to Janis Joplin’s raspy voice as she proclaimed,

{[Janis Joplin – Bobby McGee ](https://youtu.be/oHkBv-AtKDA) }

_Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose_   
_Nothin', don't mean nothin' hon' if it ain't free, no no_   
_And, feelin' good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues_   
_You know, feelin' good was good enough for me_   
_Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee_

 

Buffy opened her eyes and lifted her head from where it rested on the seatback so she could watch Spike as he jammed to the song, speeding down the two-lane road fast enough to cost several hundred dollars in fines if they were caught by a trooper’s radar gun.

_One day up near Salinas, Lord, I let him slip away_   
_He's lookin' for that home, and I hope he finds it_   
_But, I'd trade all of my tomorrows, for a single yesterday_   
_To be holdin' Bobby's body next to mine…_

She smiled, watching him. She wished they would’ve really done this ten years ago. What had really been stopping them, after all? They could’ve taken a day and … okay, well, it would’ve had to have been a _night_. But still, she should’ve done this instead of that rushed declaration and exchange of vows in her bedroom. If she ever got to ride in the TARDIS, she’d go back and tell herself to do it.

Buffy laughed at herself. How ridiculous was that? Of all the things to go back and tell herself to do, that really shouldn’t even be in the top ten on the list.

“What’s funny, luv?” Spike asked, turning to look at her, his smile curious.

“If you could go back to any point in time and give yourself some advice, what would it be?” she asked.

Spike arched a brow at her and turned back to the road, thinking. “Just one, eh?”

Buffy shrugged. “Start with one … what’s the first thing you’d tell yourself to do differently?”

“Well, plenty I could do, but I don’t reckon I’d listen t’ most of it. Think I was talkin’ rubbish, wouldn’t I?”

“Like what?” Buffy prompted, lowering one foot from the dashboard to prod his jean-clad thigh.

“Could tell m’self t’ snatch you up and steal away with ya the minute I hit Sunnydale, couldn’t I? Don’t reckon that would work out too well, though. You’d likely stake me ‘fore I got ten miles or bloody Angel or your Watcher would hunt me down. Be a right disaster, that would.”

Buffy laughed and nodded. “Yeah, that probably wouldn’t have been one of your better plans,” she agreed.

“Why, what would you’ve done, luv?” he wondered, shifting his gaze from the road to her and back again.

Buffy shrugged. “I was thinking I would tell myself to actually do this.” She waved a hand out at the expanse of desert around them. “Actually elope with you instead of just … you know.”

Spike barked out a laugh. “Of all the things ya could change … this? This is it?” he asked incredulously.

Buffy shrugged and felt her face flush in embarrassment. “I know, it’s silly. Like … gee, maybe I should warn myself about Angelus or Warren or Caleb or Finn! But this just feels … right. We should’ve done it then.”

“Didn’t know, pet. We could’ve done it anytime. Been ten years…” Spike pointed out, stealing another glance at her.

Buffy shrugged again. “I know. It just never hit me until last night … like, we should totally elope! We should actually do what we said we did back then. You know, get that white lie we told everyone totally wiped off the scoreboard.”

“Bit late, that was. Want yer elopement and your wedding cake, too, eh?” Spike teased, making Buffy laugh.

“I am nothing if not thorough. Isn’t three supposed to be a lucky charm or something? Or is that just in sugary breakfast cereals?”

“Dunno … I felt lucky enough with the first one, pet,” Spike told her, stealing another look at her before looking back at the road.

“Oh, my God,” she moaned. “You are so syrupy I think I’m getting cavities.”

Spike curled his tongue against his teeth and shot her a leering glance. “Good thing I’m made o’ sugar and spice and every type o’ vice; quenching that sweet tooth o’ yours is bloody demanding.”

Buffy grinned at him and slid across the seat, pressing against his side. He wrapped his arm around her and tugged her close.

“I think I feel a craving coming on now,” she purred, running her hand up his thigh to rest on the sudden bulge growing in his crotch.

“Far be it from me t’ keep ya from sating it, pet.” 

“Mmmm … in that case,” she murmured as she began to wrestle with his fly. “Have you ever been devoured at ninety miles an hour?”

Spike moaned in the pleasure of her touch as she found his hot flesh and began to stroke his cock to rock-hardness. “Can’t say that I have. Bloody virgin, I am. Will you be gentle with me?” he teased, biting his bottom lip and stealing another look at her.

Buffy lowered her lips into his lap and grinned sinfully. “Not on your life,” she declared as her lips closed over his sweet flesh and proceeded to quench her craving hurtling down the highway at 132 feet per second.

  **** X-X-X-X-X ****

 

“Oh, look! That’s one’s neat!” Buffy exclaimed as they drove around Las Vegas trying to decide on a wedding chapel for their second wedding in as many days. “And it says they have Elvis, too! Just how many Elvi are there in Las Vegas, anyway?”

“Elvi?” Spike questioned, quirking a brow at her as he pulled into a parking spot in front of the building she’d pointed out.

“Elvi … the Latin plural of Elvis, of course! Don’t you know anything?” Buffy teased, her eyes dancing with anticipation and excitement.

“Actually, pet, the plural for Elvis is Elvēs,” Spike informed her haughtily.

“Elvēs? That’s just stupid.” Buffy wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Who says?”

“John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. Ya just can’t argue with classic SNL, pet; it’s a bloody law o’ nature, like gravity or Summers girls lovin’ chocolate.”

“ _Hmph_ ,” she grunted, crossing her arms and looking unconvinced.

“Sorry, luv. But ya wouldn’t want to be walking around using improper plurals, now, would ya? Could get ugly with so many of the big buggers around.”

Buffy blew out a derisive breath and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said grudgingly. “Well, which place do you think has the real Elvis?” she wondered, eying the two-story stone chapel they’d stopped in front of.  It kind of looked like something that should be in the Swiss Alps rather than the desert of Nevada.

Spike quirked another brow at her. “You do know Elvis is dead, yeah?”

“Oh, please! Everyone knows he’s a vampire,” Buffy contended. “I mean, what else would explain all the sightings of him – and still looking just the same as when he died?”

“I’m startin’ to have reservations about marryin’ you again. Is it too late t’ back outta this?” Spike wondered.

“Way. Too. Late,” Buffy informed him. “I broke your cherry at ninety miles an hour, so you’re stuck with me.”

Spike smirked at her. “Actually, think we got up over a hundred by the time you were done suckin’ me dry.”

Buffy flashed a self-satisfied grin at him. “Well, you’ll learn to not be all syrupy around me, won’t you?”

Spike barked out a laugh. “Learn t’ be so bloody syrupy you won’t be able t’ keep your lips off me, is what I’ll do.”

Buffy laughed. “Then you better marry me again, and soon. I’m starting to feel my cravings coming back.”

“Clearly, the real Elvis is in this one,” Spike contended, cutting the engine and getting out of the car.

“Let’s go!” Spike urged her in the next moment, opening the passenger door for her.

Her head spun around in surprise. He appeared at her door so fast she thought he must have apparated from one side of the car to the other.

Buffy slipped her feet into her sandals and jumped out, giddy with excitement. “I didn’t know you passed your Apparition Test. What other secrets have you been keeping from me?” she wondered, taking his hand as they headed for the door of the chalet-type chapel with palm trees out front.

Spike wagged his brows at her. “Not tellin’. You’ll have to suck all my secrets outta me.”

Buffy ran her tongue over her lips enticingly. “Oooo … I love a good challenge.”

  **** X-X-X-X-X ****

An older lady with an Irish accent greeted Buffy and Spike in the Swiss-looking chalet-chapel, making Buffy’s head twirl a little with the dichotomy of it, but Buffy was taken at once with her warmth and genuine interest in them. The woman, who introduced herself as Poppy, had a fluff of short, snowy white hair that was thinning, and a comfortable roundness that came with age, making her seem grand-motherly. She was shorter than Buffy, which was saying something since the Slayer was in flat sandals, with a quick smile and blue eyes that were bright and cheerful. It was clear from the moment they met that this woman was excited to help them make their – or at least Buffy’s – elopement dreams come true.

Buffy felt immediately at ease as Poppy showed them around the different venues they had within the Swiss-chalet-come-Las-Vegas-chapel. All the rooms were decorated differently, from very austere with lots of shining crystal and white satin, to a very traditional looking chapel with wooden pews and stained-glass windows high up in the wall, to a garden room with a stone floor and a burbling fountain. They all had different appeals, but it wasn’t until Poppy led them out onto the wide second floor terrace that Buffy knew they’d come to the right place.

The tall, stone walls of the chalet framed one side of a wide, open-air veranda with matching, lower walls on the other three sides. In the center of the area was a romantic white gazebo with strings of fairy lights hanging down all around it.

“Just at sunset it’s the most lovely of sights,” Poppy gushed, seeing Buffy’s reaction to the space. “With the casino lights shinin’ in the background, and the sky glowin’ with all of God’s colors. Oh, my dear lass! You’ll make the most beautiful bride in the twilight!”

Buffy grinned, looking at Spike. “That does seem to be our lucky time of day … just between the light and the dark.”

Spike smirked, tilting his head in acknowledgement. They always had walked that tightrope between light and dark, so it did seem like a fitting time, just as it had for their re-wedding the evening before.

“Can we do it tonight?” Buffy wondered, looking back at Poppy with eager eyes.

“Of course, my dear! I’ll reserve it for you straight away. You’ll just need to get your marriage license from the license bureau before the ceremony. It’s just across the way, there, ya see?” Poppy explained, pointing to a government building a block away.  

Buffy frowned, looking around for the time. Poppy seemed to understand her worry and assured her, “They’re open until midnight … never you worry, my dear. By the time your head hits the pillow tonight you will be joined in holy matrimony.”

Buffy grinned, looking at Spike. “And you can sign us in as Mr. and Mrs. Pratt.” Buffy frowned then, a thought occurring to her. “Do they still actually sign you in or just, you know, take your credit card?”

“Oh, my dear sweet lass. I’m afraid guest registries where young, giddy couples signed in as ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ went the way of Magic Fingers … such a shame,” Poppy lamented as she led them into her office to make the reservation.

“That is a bloody tragedy,” Spike agreed. “Those Magic Fingers were brilliant.”

“Well, I’m certain that your handsome young man can make plenty of his own magic, am I right?” Poppy teased, winking at Buffy.

A blush rose on Buffy’s cheeks, but she grinned wickedly back at the cherubic woman. “Oh yes, he’s very talented with his wand,” Buffy admitted.

  **** X-X-X-X-X ****

As the sun set over the desert and the trillions of lights of the casinos blinked on in the distance, Buffy once again stood facing Spike, her smile irrepressible, her joy uncontainable. Finn and his gun seemed a lifetime ago, or perhaps they were something that happened in her far-off future, because she felt like she’d been transported back in time. This should’ve been their first wedding ceremony, not their last – but never mind that. She was happy they did finally get here and made those ‘white lies’ that they’d told everyone back then into a reality.

She still wore the same, light flowery sundress she’d had on that day. The only addition to it was a wreath of yellow and white wildflowers in her hair and a small bouquet of them in her hand.  She’d also released her hair from the messy bun, letting it tumble around her shoulders in a shower of gold. Spike was still dressed in his black jeans and tee, but had added his duster to his attire, despite the desert heat, to complete the feeling of being transported back in time. Being human, he didn’t actually wear the duster as much anymore, certainly not in the summer. But, it was still part of him, part of his past, part of _their_ past; it had been through as much hell as they had, and it deserved to be part of the ceremony, as well.

Spike’s eyes never left hers as Elvis, dressed in a white, be-spangled jumpsuit and sporting an impossibly high pompadour and thick sideburns, officiated their third wedding ceremony, their second in as many days.  Buffy chose to go with the most traditional vows they offered, since neither of their other two ceremonies had been exactly traditional in the vow department.

“William, do you take Buffy to be your wedded wife, to live together in marriage.  Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health and forsaking all others, be faithful only to her, so long as you both shall live?" Elvis asked in a deep, warm, southern drawl that would melt butter and bake biscuits.

“I do,” Spike replied, his own smile meeting Buffy’s across the short distance between them. If anyone had told him even fifteen years ago that he’d be getting married to the Slayer by Elvis, he would’ve told them they were off their bird. Not even Dru, he was sure, could’ve seen this coming.

"And, Buffy, do you take William to be your wedded husband, to live together in marriage.  Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health and forsaking all others, be faithful only to him, so long as you both shall live?" the King recited again, looking at Buffy.

Her eyes danced with happiness as she replied, “I do.”

“I understand you two love-birds have rings to exchange?” Elvis asked in his smooth southern lilt, and both Buffy and Spike hastily tugged the original rings off their left hands and handed them back to the other.   “The circle is the symbol of the sun and the earth and the universe.  The ring is a symbol of unity, in which your two lives are now joined in one unbroken circle.  

“William, please place the ring on Buffy's finger and repeat after me:

“With this ring, I thee wed.  
“You were my yesterday, you are my today, you will be my tomorrow.   
“All that I am I give to you.”

At each pause in the vows, Spike repeated the words solemnly, sliding the old, dented silver band back onto her finger, never taking his eyes off his beautiful angel. He realized suddenly that he would be happy to marry Buffy again every day for the rest of his life. She was radiant, glowing, a celestial body on earth, holding his hand, accepting his ring, vowing her love to him alone. She was always beautiful, but there was some small thing, some extra drop of golden sun in her expression, in her eyes, in her smile, that elevated her into the realm of a goddess on Earth during these moments.

“Buffy, please place the ring on William’s finger and repeat after me,” Elvis drawled, unaware of the thrall Spike had fallen under.

“With this ring, I thee wed.  
“You were my yesterday, you are my today, you will be my tomorrow.   
“All that I am I give to you.”

Buffy repeated the words, echoing them back to Spike, as she slid the skull ring back on his left hand, lost in his eyes as they bore into hers. No one had ever looked at her like Spike did. If eyes were the window to the soul, then Spike’s windows were thrown wide open, the curtains torn down. Those eyes, which were the color of the Aegean Sea, concealed nothing; they showed every emotion, every thought, every feeling. She’d never felt anything like his gaze upon her; it was a palpable presence. She’d felt it like the force of a tornado when he’d been angry with her, like a soft rain when he’d been sad, or like a blazing sun when he’d been filled with lust. In this moment, though, it was like a silken caress floating on a gentle breeze against her heart and soul, so tender, so loving, so absolutely mesmerizing.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Kiss that beautiful girl, man,” the King finished, flashing Spike with a wicked grin.

Spike drew Buffy into his arms then quickly turned and swept her into a deep dip, his strong arms wrapped around her in a loving embrace. She squeaked in surprise and began to laugh as she bent backwards, but the joy was devoured by her husband as he captured her lips with his. Poppy, along with her husband, Erwin, their witnesses, applauded enthusiastically. As the kiss deepened, music began to play, and Elvis started singing a rousing rendition of ‘Burning Love’, which made the bride and groom laugh against each other’s lips.

The fairy lights twinkled around the thrice-married pair as the sun set beyond the edge of the desert, painting the sky in brilliance just for them. The delicate clouds that arched over them morphed into shades of shell-pink and old parchment flecked with gold, framed against a canvas of turquoise as the sun gave way to the domain of the stars.

And, as romance bloomed, Elvis sang,

{ [Elvis, Burning Love](https://youtu.be/-wJXiQEjVgQ)   }

_Lord Almighty_  
 _I feel my temperature rising_  
 _Higher higher_  
 _It's burning through to my soul_  
 _Girl, girl, girl_  
 _You going to set me on fire_  
 _My brain is flaming_  
 _I don't know which way to go_  
  
_Your kisses lift me higher_  
 _Like the sweet song of a choir_  
 _You light my morning sky_  
 _With burning love_

  
_I'm just a hunk, a hunk of burning love_   
_Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love_   
_Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love_   
_Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love_

  
_**** X-X-X-X-X ****_

After being danced back down the aisle by a grinding and grinning Elvis to the never-ending refrain of ‘ _a hunk, a hunk a’ burning love_ ,’ Poppy presented them with their certificate of marriage. The official one would arrive in a few days after being recorded by the county, but this one made Buffy laugh again as she took it from the cheerful Irishwoman.  It had a watermark of Elvis’ smiling face emblazoned across it and declared that William Henry Pratt and Buffy Anne Summers, hereafter known as Buffy Anne Summers-Pratt, were legally married in the eyes of Clark County and the great state of Nevada.

There was only one way to cap off a sunset elopement wedding with the King, and that's in a fog of eating, drinking and gambling, pushing Sin City's limits in the ultimate Vegas elopement/honeymoon blowout. So, still wearing the wildflower wreath around her head, Buffy and Spike did all the things that any giddy, apparently newlywed, tourists in Vegas would do.

First, they headed to Yardbird Southern Bar and Grill at The Venetian casino for their celebratory dinner. A black and white slideshow of a teenage Elvis with his guitar flickered around them on the white-tied walls. All the classic Elvis songs played as they feasted on southern fried chicken and waffles, followed by nothing other than peanut butter and banana sandwiches for dessert.

After eating, Buffy declared that she wanted to stay in Paris tonight, so the couple set off for Paris Las Vegas. Luckily, Spike had never been banned from the casino here, so they spent some time in front of the sensory-assaulting slot machines and their hysterical whir of lights and sound. Buffy won, then lost, then won!

“Reckon that puts you ahead by … errr …” Spike looked at her winnings critically. “’bout … a dollar.”

Buffy grinned proudly. “I suppose you think you could do better!” she challenged.

“ _Pfft_!” Spike rolled his eyes. “Watch and learn, grasshopper,” he informed her as he headed for the blackjack tables.

“Oh! Wait!” Buffy stopped him on the way, pausing at a roulette table. “I always wanted to try Russian Roulette!” she told him, grinning.

Spike arched a brow at her. “Ya do know that Russian Roulette’s a completely different thing, yeah?”

Her face fell a bit, contorting into a pout. “Oh … but … this isn’t Russian?”

“Not even close. French, pet,” Spike informed her.

Buffy brightened. “Oh! Cos we’re in Paris Las Vegas!” she surmised, making Spike sigh and roll his eyes, but had no time to explain further.  “French Roulette then!” Buffy agreed, turning to the table and placing a tall stack of chips on the square with a ‘3’ in the center of it.

Spike arched a critical brow at her. “Ya sure about that, pet?”

“Yep!” Buffy bounced back at him, waiting impatiently for the lady behind the table to set the little ball spinning around the rim.

Spike watched over Buffy’s shoulder as the call for final bets was made. His palms itched to divide the stack up, or at least move it to one of the less risky bets. She’d put a small bloody fortune on one number in a game that she didn’t even know the proper name of and which was nothing but chance – no bloody skill at all. He held his breath as the croupier set the ball spinning.

“Bloody fucking hell,” he muttered as the small white ball slowed, rolled down the space between the rim and the wheel, bounced twice, and landed in the ‘3’ on the spinning wheel.

Buffy clapped and jumped up and down, her grin widening and the wildflower wreath bouncing with the movement. “I win! I win!” she told the indifferent, stern-looking woman behind the table. “What do I win?”

That made the croupier shake her head and roll her eyes as she began counting out chips. “Thirty-five to one,” she told Buffy, sliding a couple of stacks of large denomination chips her way.

“Spike! I won all this!” Buffy announced, scooping up the chips in both hands before turning to show him. “I think it’s more than a dollar!”

“Yeah, I reckon it’s a bit more than a dollar, luv. How the bloody hell…” he mused, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I’m just that good,” Buffy sniffed haughtily, straightening her wreath like a crown. She dropped the chips into her purse unceremoniously, as if they were penny candies instead of thousands of dollars of chips. “Now … what were you gonna show me, _grasshopper_?”

Spike scowled at her, but took her hand and led her over to the blackjack tables. “Beginner’s luck,” he sneered as they walked. “Show ya what skill can do.”

“Oooo … I love seeing all your _skills_ ,” Buffy teased, biting her bottom lip coquettishly. “But I don’t think you better pull out your wand down here.”

Spike smirked at her. “I’ll ‘ave you know I’ve got plenty of other talents.”

Buffy looked at him with mock pity and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Of course you do, honey,” she simpered sweetly, as if reassuring a particularly inept child. “You must believe before you can achieve,” she continued encouraging him.

“Ta ever so, Mr. Rogers,” Spike scoffed, taking a seat at one of the six-deck tables with a $25 minimum.  He dug into the pocket of his duster and pulled out his own chips, placing one on the table for his ante.

“You can’t win very much with that,” Buffy pointed out, standing behind him. “I bet all mine at once. Can’t you bet more?”

Spike turned back to look at her, his brow arched. “Who’s playin’ here, you or me?”

“Just sayin’,” she muttered, shrugging. “Not very efficient.”

Spike blew out a breath and rolled his eyes as the dealer began dealing cards to all the players and himself. Despite Buffy’s teasing, she watched eagerly, cheering when Spike won and consoling him when he lost a hand. She didn’t really understand everything he did or why he did it, to be honest, but he seemed to know what he was doing, because he won more than he lost. And – score! – a waitress started coming around with free drinks for him and his _companion_.

“Wife,” Buffy corrected the woman, beaming as she unfurled the Elvis-emblazoned marriage certificate from her bag and waved it in the air.

The waitress looked from Buffy to Spike and back again. “Nice catch,” she acknowledged, giving Buffy a wink.

“Yes, I am,” Buffy retorted, lifting her chin snootily before returning the wink, making the waitress laugh and bring them even more drinks.

“I tink … errr …  thunk ... ummm… think,” Buff slurred into Spike’s ear after a while, “they’re tryin’ t’ get you drink … errr … dunk … uh ... _drunk_ so you give them their pretty chippies back.”

Spike turned back to her, raising his brows. “Bloody astute, Slayer. Could be why I been givin’ most of mine t’ you.”

“You … have?” Buffy asked, swaying a bit as the dealer busted and began paying out to the other players who had won. “Oooo … do they want my pretty chippies back, too?”

Spike laughed and rolled his eyes. “Think you could use a bit o’ air, pet,” Spike suggested, as he pushed his stacks of chips toward the dealer and requested to, “Color up.”

“There’s air here,” Buffy pointed out. “See?” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and leaning her head back to fill her lungs, and nearly toppled backwards as she did it. Only Spike’s quick reactions saved her from falling flat on her ass, catching her with one arm as he bolted to his feet.

“Oh! You’re strong,” Buffy declared as she clutched his arm for balance. “And firm. I really like that about you … very … firm. Did I ever tell you that?”

Spike smirked, dropping most of his chips into his pocket before tossing one of the black chips back to the dealer, who acknowledged the tip with a nod and put that chip away in a separate place. “Do believe you’ve mentioned it a time or two, yeah,” Spike answered Buffy, wrapping an arm around her and guiding her toward the cashier’s window.

“Are we getting air now?” she wondered.

“In a mo’, pet,” Spike assured her as they went up to one of the open windows to cash in their chips.

Spike began putting his chips in the little drawer, counting them as he went.

“Do they _sell_ air now? How much is it?” Buffy wondered, watching him with wide eyes. “Do ya need my pretty chippies, too?”

“Gotta buy my air first, then we’ll get you some,” Spike explained as the cashier pulled the drawer in and began counting the chips.

“Ooooh,” Buffy acknowledged sagely as she watched. “Maybe we should have stayed in California … I think the air is still free there.”

Spike snorted a laugh, rolling his eyes. “Reckon we can afford it, luv.”

“Be sure to get some for William and Annie … Oh! And Nick and Dawn! They’ll all need air when they get here Tuesday. Should we get it now, or wait? Will it go bad?” Buffy wondered earnestly.

“Reckon we can get it later, just in case,” Spike advised as he took the cash out of the drawer that the cashier had sent back to him. “Right, then, let’s have yours.”

“Oh!” Buffy exclaimed, remembering she had to buy her air. She opened her purse and turned it upside down into the drawer. All her chips dropped in there, along with a tube of Chapstick, her cellphone, a few dollar bills and a handful of loose change, the odd paperclip, a pair of tweezers, a Band-Aid, a pack of wet-wipes, a tampon, a bottle of Tylenol, a ring of keys that didn’t fit anything they owned, three red Lifesavers, two pens, a broken yellow crayon, one credit card, her driver’s license, their marriage certificate, and a stake.

Spike rolled his eyes and began fishing everything out that wasn’t chips, dropping it all back into her purse as the cashier gave him a, ‘ _You have got to be kidding me_ ,’ look.  

Spike gave the woman his most charming smile as he finally got all the detritus removed from the drawer. “Apologies. Off her meds, she is.”

“Looks like a few too many meds,” the cashier muttered with an eye roll, pulling the drawer in and counting Buffy’s chips.

“How many airs can I buy?” Buffy wondered, watching the proceedings.

Spike was watching the woman count closely, since he wasn’t sure exactly what Buffy had. When she finished and began stacking up hundred-dollar bills, he groaned.

“Whats’a matter? Are they outta air?” Buffy asked, looking up at him with concern.

“Ya won ten dollars more than I did,” he grumbled. “Bloody beginners.”

Buffy’s eyes went wide and a smile spread across her face. “Ha! Who’s the grasshopper now, Padawan? Me! That’s who! I am the hopper of grass! Leaper of tall lawns! Jumper of dandelions!”

“Ya do know that ‘Padawan’ and ‘grasshopper’ mean the same thing, yeah?” Spike pointed out. “And they both mean lucky bloody beginner!”

Buffy frowned watching him take her money out of the drawer and stuff it down into his own pocket. “Hey! Where’s my air?”

“They got it waiting outside for ya, luv,” he assured her, taking her by the shoulders and guiding her toward the exit.

“Oh, right. That’s a good place for air, out in the … open air.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“We should have cake!” Buffy announced when they’d hit the sidewalk outside, completely forgetting about her air. “Cake! Cake! My kingdom for a cake!”

People on the sidewalk looked at her warily, giving her and Spike a wide berth as they passed. Buffy spotted a family who were all sitting on a bench eating cupcakes and, before Spike could grab her, had hurried over to them and asked, “Where did you get cake? I need cake! Do you have extra?”

Before the parents could jump up and intercede, the little boy pointed to what looked like a pink ATM machine in a wall nearby. Buffy’s eyes went wide and she started for it as Spike apologized to the family and headed after her.

([Video of Cupcake ATM](https://youtu.be/A-obzGsxkSE) )

“LOOK! Cake from an ATM! This is soooo cool! Why don’t we have cake from an ATM at home?” Buffy wondered, swiping her finger over the screen to see all the different kinds. “We have to get the ‘Lucky Seven’! It says right here if we get seven, it assures our future happiness!” she told Spike as he stood behind her now, watching.

She turned back and looked at him with wide eyes. “We should get seven for Anya and Xander, too … and Willow and Tara, and Nick and Dawn … and … and … the world! We should get seven for everyone in the world! Why didn’t I know about this before?! Guaranteed happiness from an ATM cake machine!”

Spike bit his bottom lip to keep from laughing a moment before saying, “Don’t reckon they have enough cupcakes for that, pet. Why don’t we just start with us, and see how that goes, eh?”

“But … what about everyone else?” Buffy wondered.

“Reckon if it works for us, we can come back and get it for the rest o’ the world. Right, then, what flavor … oh, let me guess … dark chocolate.”

Buffy, predictably, touched the dark chocolate one, then selected a dark chocolate with marshmallow to go with it. Spike reached over her and picked a red velvet one and a cinnamon sugar one.

“We need three more for guaranteed happiness,” Buffy insisted, selecting a chocolate coconut one next and one called ‘Cuban coffee’. Spike reached past her and selected a salted caramel one to round out the ‘lucky seven’.

Buffy touched the screen to complete purchase and the machine started counting down the seconds from 30, telling them to swipe a card for payment. “Thirty seconds! Oh my God! Hurry! Swipe the card! Do you have a card! Where’s my card!? Don’t lose our happiness!” Buffy panicked, nearly spilling the contents of her purse on the sidewalk. Spike laid a hand over hers, stilling her. He pulled his own credit card out of his pocket and swiped it with something like twenty seconds to spare, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, my hero,” Buffy swooned dramatically as they watched the screen, which was now showing them the machine picking out their cupcakes and placing them into the dispensing area.

“Always your hero, pet,” Spike told her with a smile and a shake of his head as they waited for their guaranteed future happiness to arrive in the form of seven cupcakes from a pink ATM machine.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Buffy moaned as she finished her fourth cupcake. They’d found a place to sit near a dancing fountain that jetted and gushed streams of sparkling clear water in time with dazzling, ever-changing colored lights.

Spike arched a brow at her. “So much for guaranteed future happiness, eh? Reckon they didn’t count on ya eating all yer cake at once on top o’ all those shots o’ whiskey, did they?”

Buffy looked a little green as she rubbed the cake-baby that bulged in her stomach. “I guess they didn’t specify when ‘the future’ started,” she admitted.

“Maybe walk it off, eh?” Spike suggested, standing up and offering her his hand.

Buffy took his hand and stood up, swaying a bit in place and closing her eyes against the sudden tilting of the world. Unsure whether to clutch her head or her stomach, she finally decided to cover her mouth with her free hand, just in case of an explosive return of the cupcakes. Spike steadied her a moment, moving slightly to the side to be out of the way of such an event, which seemed like it would be a good bet, if he were playing the odds.

Finally, everything seemed to settle, the world stopped listing beneath her feet, and Buffy opened her eyes.

“Alright?” he asked her, looking dubious.

“Yeah, I think it’s passed,” Buffy replied cautiously.

“Right, then … ya want t’ take that—”

“Oh, God!” Buffy croaked out, clutching one hand to her stomach and the other over her mouth as she lunged for a nearby garbage can.

“Bloody hell!” Spike exclaimed, jumping back out of the way, barely avoiding the Exorcist-worthy stream of whiskey-soaked cupcake that exploded from Buffy’s lips and hurled through the air.

Buffy grasped the edges of the garbage can and retched violently as the night’s festivities made a return engagement. He stepped up to her and held her hair back with one hand while rubbing her back gently with the other as her body spasmed and convulsed. He felt his own cupcakes begin to churn in his stomach and he gagged and swallowed back the urge to let them escape. 

There were a few times when he’d wished he still had the ability to stop breathing – changing diapers had been the first time he’d really missed that particular perk of being undead. Being around people who were puking was a close second. Of course, the trifecta of having a child puking, shitting, and pissing all at once was the crown jewel of repulsive aroma therapy.  

He did his best to not breathe now. His best was really not good enough.

Everyone in the area started turning green as the smell and sound hit them. Spike could hear other people gasping and cursing and gagging as they cleared the area like rats abandoning a sinking ship. Spike fleetingly wished he could join them … but ‘ _in sickness and in health’_ and all that rot.

Gasping for air, Buffy finally straightened back up. She wiped at her watering eyes as Spike grabbed some napkins off the nearby table and handed them to her. Her breath began to come back to her as she wiped her mouth, backing away from the stench of the garbage can, afraid it would get her started all over again. 

“Done?” he asked, his nose wrinkled, still wishing he could stop breathing.

She nodded shallowly and slowly. “Remind me in the future that cake and whiskey are unmixy and should definitely never touch.”

Spike smirked. “Remind ya when yer drunk off your ass? Yeah, that’d do a lot a’ good,” he teased. “Jesus, you haven’t gone Exorcist like that since the burrito incident back when you were preggers with Annie.”

Buffy closed her eyes and held up a hand to stop him. “No burrito talk now, Spike...” she warned, fighting another surge of nausea the memory had conjured.

“Right, no burritos … remember the time Junior puked Chinese food all over the bloody car—”

Buffy opened one eye and glared at him. “Shut. Up.”

“Right,” Spike agreed, looking around at the now empty seating area. “There’s a loo over there, if ya want to…”

Buffy nodded empathically and headed for the bathroom, still rubbing her stomach.

A maintenance worker walked over toward Spike, scowling at the mess Buffy had made. She hadn’t been quite fast enough to get everything into the garbage can, and a thick layer of whiskey-chocolate puke ran down the outside of the receptacle. Spike followed the man’s eyes and another gag of sick tickled the back of his throat.

He quickly dug into his pocket and peeled a couple of crisp, new fifties off their winnings. “Sorry, mate,” he said as he handed them to the man before following his wife away from the scene of the crime and toward the bathrooms.

“Better?” Spike asked when Buffy finally emerged, looking more like herself, though her eyes were still a little glazed and red around the edges.

She nodded. “You promised walking. Walking would be of the good. Let’s ambulate,” she suggested.

Spike took her hand in his as they walked back to the bustling sidewalk. They turned in a random direction and began to make their way down the Strip as the bright lights glittered and flashed all around them. It was as if the millions of small bulbs were training to be stars in the sky, dreaming of floating up to join their elder brethren in heaven and light up entire worlds when they grew up.

They passed casinos and shops, restaurants and bars as they walked, just soaking it all in as Buffy’s stomach settled down and the world stopped bobbing and weaving beneath her feet. There were people speaking unintelligible languages and wearing everything from feathers and sequins (and nothing else) to black cloaks and robes that covered nearly every square inch of skin. There were families and couples, some people hurried along and while some meandered, some people were laughing, clearly having the time of their lives and some were arguing, angry and lost in the tide of humanity. Limos as long as freight trains passed by them, along with Bugattis and Rolls Royces and a VW bug that Buffy was sure was Herbie, but it disappeared around a corner before she could ask for its autograph. There seemed to be a small sample of everything in the world here. What were they all looking for? Happiness? Did they know they sold it at the pink ATM machine in the form of cupcakes? Just don’t mix them with whiskey.

“Oh! We should totally do this!” Buffy announced suddenly, sounding very much like her normal self, pulling Spike over to the side to peer into a tattoo parlor. “Matching tattoos! We could get one of those hearts where I have half and you have half! Or a yin and yang symbol! Or … oh! That’s cute! Look!” she pointed at some of the pictures and drawings that lined the window for passersby to see. “Peanut butter and jelly! Awww, that’s sweet … Oh! The sun and the moon! No! Wait! Heartbeats! Now that’s perfect! Look, Spike! We could get a heartbeat that goes across our wrists, connecting us.”

“Abso-bloody-lutley not,” Spike barked, tugging her away by the hand he was holding. 

“Whyyyy?” she moaned, sounding so much like Annie that Spike had to look back at to make sure who he had hold of.

“Not keen on it, is all,” he said, pulling her along in his wake, far away from the tattoo parlor.

“Why?” Buffy asked again, not quite as whiney, as she followed him without struggling.

“They stick ya with needles. It’s bloody vile.” Spike shuddered. “Evil, is what it is.”

“Vile? _Evil_?” Buffy repeated sardonically, starting to laugh. “ _You’re_ calling _that_ vile and evil? _You_? You were a vampire for…” Buffy stopped talking as a few heads turned her way. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You were a vampire for over a century, and you think getting a tattoo is evil?”

Spike sniffed, lifting his chin defiantly. “I do,” he retorted. “Not getting needles punched into my flesh, not even for you, so drop it.”

Buffy laughed, walking beside him, still holding his hand. “Needles wig you out.”

“Do not! Had plenty stuck in me, haven’t I? Stitching up this and that,” he protested.

“Now that you mention it, you never actually watch when someone’s stitching you up. You always look away or close your eyes,” she noted.

“I suppose you like watchin’ your flesh and skin being mutilated with needles, then, do ya?” he asked sternly.

Buffy laughed again, shrugging. “It’s just a needle, Spike. It’s not like a dagger or something.”

“ _Pfft_ ,” he snorted. “Still a dagger, just in miniature.”

Buffy laughed again, shaking her head. The big, strong, Slayer, a former vampire, is wigged out by a needle. How had she not known that before?

  **** X-X-X-X-X ****

“No, no, no,” Spike protested as Buffy dragged him into another den of pure and utter evil a bit later.

“Yes, yes, yes!” she insisted laughing as the music from within spilled over them, coating them both in a thick layer of hillbilly twang, pickup trucks, and big green tractors, which threatened to suffocate him.

“I let you off on the tattoo,” she reminded him. “I wanna line dance! It’s fun! C’mon!”

“Changed m’ mind … rather ‘ave tattoos,” Spike suggested, trying to turn back around and leave the Gilley’s Saloon, that she was trying to pull him into.

“Too late!” Buffy laughed, dragging him behind her into the loud, bustling heart of Urban Cowboy legend as Garth Brooks lamented about his ‘friends in low places’.

“Look! A mechanical bull!” she exclaimed as they made their way through the restaurant into the bar area. “Let’s try it!”

“You turned inside out not two hours ago!! You wanna ride a fucking bull?!” he asked incredulously.

“Uh-huh... I’m fine now. All empty,” she beamed at him.

“Yeah, noticed that, I did. You shouldn’t be able to be so perky after what I witnessed... not bloody fair.”

“You’re just still sore because you don’t have that vamp constitution anymore and you can’t drink all of us under the table... remember William’s first Christmas?” she taunted.

“Don’t. Don’t ever bring that up, you the know the rules,” he said warningly, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Eggnog,” Buffy teased.

Spike felt his stomach begin to revolt again and bile rise to the back of his throat. “Stop it.”

“Hey, you brought up burritos earlier… all’s fair in love and puke,” Buffy asserted, grinning at him.

“Fine – we’re even. Give it a bloody rest. Still not gonna ride a bloody mechanical bull.”

She turned gleaming eyes on her husband. “I bet I can ride it better than you can,” she challenged. “You aren’t afraid of little ole me showing you up, are you?” she cooed.

Spike narrowed his eyes at her, unable to resist a challenge. “Not bloody likely,” he retorted.

Buffy grinned. “One way to find out. If I ride it better, you line dance; if you win, we can leave and I’ll never, ever suggest it again.”

“Deal.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

 

After watching a few riders, some of which had obviously never even _heard_ of a mechanical bull before, and others who were regulars on Buford, it was Buffy and Spike’s turn. They let the bull operator choose who got to go first, and he picked Spike.  Spike removed his duster, handing it to Buffy before heading into the ring.

“Turn it the bloody fuck up to ten,” Spike told the operator confidently before making his way across the padded floor and mounting the bull Roy Rogers’ style by vaulting up onto from behind, drawing some cheers and whistles from the crowd watching.  Spike wrapped his left hand around the strap, gripping tightly, squeezed his knees into the bull’s sides, lifted his right arm for balance, and nodded to the operator to begin.

The bull started spinning slowly at first, with gentle jerking halts and starts, and a few bucks, but when it was clear that was no challenge for Spike, the operator began increasing the speed and complexity of the moves. Using his right arm for balance, Spike gripped the bull strongly with his legs and left hand, but let everything from his pelvis up move freely, his hips rocking and rolling back and forth with each move of the big ‘animal’ beneath him, going with the moves rather than trying to fight them. His body swerved and swayed with the ever-increasing speed of the bull’s twists, spins, jerking starts and stops, and bucks, leaning forward and bowing back with incredible flexibility and dexterity. The crowd cheered and let out ‘yee-haws’ and whistles as he continued to display his considerable strength, balance, and fearless resolve.  

Finally, the speed of the bull’s jerking spins began to slow and then come to a stop and everyone applauded and cheered Spike’s impressive display. Spike pushed up to stand on the bull’s back and took bows in all four directions before leaping off the bull into a somersault and sticking a ‘perfect 10’ landing on the padding of the ring, drawing even more raucous cheers from the crowd.

“Show off,” Buffy groaned as he made his way back to her, smirking like the cat that ate the canary.

“Reckon even the Russian judge would give that a ‘10’,” he informed her, taking his duster back from her.

“ _Pffft_ ,” Buffy disagreed, rolling her eyes. “8.5 at the most.”

Spike laughed and she slapped her purse into his hands, taking the wildflower wreath off her head and settling it crookedly on his. “I hope you didn’t wear yourself out, cos we’re going line dancing when I get done.”

“Not bloody likely,” Spike repeated, pulling the flowers off his head, still smirking, secure in the knowledge that no way could she do any better than he had.

He was wrong.

  **** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy mounted the bull from behind also, but she slid onto its back in a slow, sensuous, almost serpentine movement, inching her body onto the beast with the lithe, supple movements of a stripper.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Spike moaned when the crowd began whistling and cheering before the bull had even started moving.

Buffy slowly hiked her skirt up as she lowered her legs around the beast’s flanks in a sensuous, graceful dance. The light fabric pooled around her hips, leaving the promise of revelations of even more sumptuous flesh swirling like dreams of Christmas puddings in the heads of the spectators.

With a wicked smile toward Spike, she gave the operator a nod and the bull began to move, a slow, luscious, sexual movement back and forth beneath her. Buffy didn’t bother holding on to the strap, she let her body undulate with the bull, graceful and erotic. She dropped her head back and let her long hair fall free, a cascading riot of spun gold tumbling in waves over her shoulders and down her back. Her hands trailed up her body as she arched her back into an impossible bow, drawing a cascade of catcalls and whistles from the crowd. And still the bull moved beneath her, spinning slowly one way, then the other, constantly bucking and rearing, a sultry tempo of carnality.  

Spike adjusted his jeans beneath his duster, the denim having suddenly, inexplicably become uncomfortably tight in the crotch.

“Shut it down, mate,” Spike told the operator, resigned.

The crowd moaned when the bull stopped, yelling encouragement for Buffy to continue her ride, whistling and applauding, trying to get an encore. Buffy slid off the bull elegantly, managing to keep her dress from riding up any higher, and gave a sweeping bow to the crowd.

“I’d say that’s a ’69’ from the Russian judge,” she proclaimed with a victorious grin as she got back to Spike, taking her purse and the flowers back from him.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Not dancin’ to Billy Ray Cyrus – no way in hell,” he proclaimed as they began walking away from the bull toward the dance floor.

“’Achy Breaky Heart’ it is!” Buffy announced laughing, settling her wildflower garland back atop her head and wondering how much it would cost her to get the DJ to play it.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“This is amazing!” Buffy gushed from the top of the Eiffel Tower as she glided around the observation room, taking in the whole of glittering, pre-dawn Las Vegas. “You can see everything!”

Spike walked over to where she was watching the lighted water show below, transfixed by the dancing fountains and glittering, ever-changing colors. Apparently, the green-tinged memory of the ‘lucky’ cupcakes she’d eaten there a few hours before having now been forgotten. Beyond the lights of the hotels and casinos, the sky to the east was beginning to lighten with the gentlest kiss from the coming sunrise.

She leaned into him when his sleeve brushed her arm and Spike wrapped his arm around her, settling her against his body. “Have a good night, luv?” he asked, watching the swirling, colorful fountains as they jetted and swelled in a dazzling array of synchronized dances below.

She moaned an affirmation against him. “It was everything I dreamed of for an elopement. Getting married by Elvis, eating fried chicken and waffles and PB and banana sandwiches, gambling, drunkenness, cupcakes, queasiness, pukiness, picking out matching tattoos that you won’t get, bull-riding, line dancing, seeing the _actual_ Batmobile _and_ Kit _and_ the ‘Back to the Future’ DeLorean! That car place wasn’t as lame as I thought it would be – you know we’re gonna have to take the kids there, right? Getting freaked out in the haunted museum, and taking in a zombie burlesque show. And now, the Eiffel Tower!”

Spike laughed, hugging her tighter. “All that was in yer dream, eh?” he questioned.

Buffy laughed, shrugging beneath his arm as the fountains below continued their glittering, ever-changing dance and the sky began to fade from the deep hues of twilight to the soft blues of morning.

“Well, the Elvis part, anyway,” she admitted. “But, you were wrong – that wasn’t the real Elvis.”

Spike snorted. “How could ya tell?”

“It was still light out and I saw the sun shine right on him and he didn’t even smolder at all. Plus – too young and too thin. Vampire Elvis would be older and chunkier. Very disappointing,” she sighed.

Spike laughed. “Probably for the best, luv. Wouldn’t want ya to have to stake the King – what would all those supermarket tabloids do without Elvis sightings?”

“True …” Buffy agreed. “I’d probably give him a pass, I mean, he’s probably a peanut butter and banana sandwich vampire, anyway.”

Spike’s brows went up. “Is he, then? Didn’t know about that particular variation. A lot of ‘em around, are there?”

Buffy shook her head. “Na, just him. It’s a thing.”

“You’re nutty as a bloody fruitcake, ya know that, yeah?”

Buffy laughed and looked up at him just as the sun peeked above the far horizon. “Have to be! I married you … three times.”

“Damn right ya did,” Spike agreed, smirking. He pulled her around to face him and dropped his lips to hers as the rising sun began to paint the clouds with streaks of rich gold and blushing roses.

Buffy leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck, their bodies molding together like a million times before but feeling just as perfect as the very first time.

“I think we should get a room, Mr. Pratt,” she whispered against his lips as the first sunbeams crept past the dancing lights of the city to wrap around the two souls who danced between worlds, between darkness and light.

“I think that’s the best idea you’ve had all night, Mrs. Pratt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed their first night in Vegas, the return of 'drunk Buffy', and had some laughs. More of their honeymoon/elopement to come! Thank you very much for reading, for sticking with the story through thick and thin and saccharine sweetness. I’d love to hear from you! Please let me know your thoughts!
> 
> The Cupcake ATM is a real thing, and it's in several cities. It's by a company called Sprinkles. The 'Lucky Seven Cupcakes' thing is a real thing too, but apparently only in Vegas. 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	99. Cravings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Buffy’s cravings never seem to be sated …

* * *

 

Spike dropped their bags inside the door. His duster slipped from his shoulders with practiced fluidity, landing in a pile of leather a couple of feet inside the room. He toed his boots off and left them where he stepped out of them, his jeans dropped to the floor next, tugging his feet out of them as he made a bee-line for the bed. The last thing to hit the floor before he reached the bed was his t-shirt.

Buffy followed him, taking a moment to put out the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the doorknob and bolting the door before leaving her own bread-crumb trail of sandals, wildflower garland, dress, bra, and panties on the carpet between the door and the bed.

“Move over, piggy!” she grumbled pushing on Spike’s unmoving form that lay face-down, catawampus across the bed.

Spike groaned and rolled to one side, allowing her room to collapse next to him with a moan of undisguised, blissful relief.

“Are you asleep?” she asked, trying to tug the sheet out from under him.

Spike grunted a wordless reply, unmoving from where he lay now on his side facing her, his eyes closed.

“Are we supposed to have sex now?”

Spike opened one blood-shot eye barely a slit. “Knackered,” he muttered, closing his eye again.

“Thank God,” Buffy sighed, giving up on getting the sheet out from under him and, instead, just rolling over against him. “I’m getting too old for this,” she admitted, snuggling against him and letting her eyes fall closed for the first time in twenty-four hours.

“Wimp,” Spike mumbled groggily.

“Wuss,” Buffy murmured.

“Quitter,” Spike rumbled back.

“Sissy.”

Spike wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer, tucking her head beneath his chin and muttering something unintelligible back in a half-snore, half-sigh.

Buffy’s body sank into the soft mattress and melted against him in complete and utter exhaustion. “Love you, too,” she breathed, her voice muffled against his chest as she floated away on the clouds of exhaustion and into rapturous slumber with him.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

The evening air was cool, but the trapped heat of the day radiated up from the cobblestones and off the red brick walls of the long line of terraced homes on either side of the narrow, grimy street. As she stepped up onto the front stoop of number twelve, William swept Buffy into his arms, the silk and lace of her wedding dress sweeping up from the ground and draping down over his strong arms.

Buffy laughed, a sound of pure joy, and wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her the last couple of steps toward the wide, mahogany door. She removed the black, formal top-hat from his head, disheveling his light brown coif, and placed it on her own head.

“You, my darling, look better in it than I,” William admitted before touching a soft kiss to her lips just as the door opened for them.

“’Bout bloody time,” Spike groused as William stepped into the parlor with his bride, their lips still nipping and teasing each other as they passed over the threshold. “Just how long does it take t’ get married by Elvis, anyway?”

Buffy pulled away from William’s sweet mouth and patted a hand on Spike’s cheek reassuringly. “You could’ve come with,” she reminded him as William placed her back onto her feet.  

She slipped one hand into William’s, entwining their fingers, hearing the rings they’d exchanged ‘tinkle’ softly when they slid against each other.

Spike snorted. “Seen enough o’ Elvis when he was alive, don’t need t’ see him now.”

Buffy’s brows furrowed. “You knew Elvis?”

“’Course. Who the bloody hell do ya think taught him that hip swivel thing? And that lip curl? A southern schoolmarm in the heart o’ the bible belt?” Spike sniffed. “Should’a made him give me royalties for that,” he grumbled.

Buffy laughed while William rolled his eyes.

“Well,” Buffy cooed, trailing her free hand slowly down over his t-shirt-clad chest and settling it on his belt buckle. “Maybe you could show me how that goes … I could pay you plenty of _royalties_.”

“Could ya, then?” he questioned, his golden eyes dancing with undisguised lust as his tongue darted out between his glistening fangs.

Buffy nodded, running her own tongue over her lips and teeth, mirroring him, before taking his hand and leading them both up the stairs….

“Concurrently?” Spike and William both asked at once, following her eagerly.

Buffy bit her bottom lip coquettishly and widened her eyes invitingly, looking back at her husbands.

“Concurrently,” they both sighed dreamily, their eyes glazing over and jaws going slack as visions of debauchery danced in their heads.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Buffy’s eyes flashed open.

_No, no, no! Go back! What was that about concurrent debauchery?_

She closed her eyes again, willing her mind to go back into the dream, when she realized that she had to pee. Immediately, if not sooner.

_Damnit! Stupid bladder couldn’t have waited a little while longer!? Shit!_

Buffy sighed, the dream slipping away from her like mist through her fingers.

Buffy tried to move, to get up. She seemed stuck. She remembered clearly not being able to get under the covers when they’d collapsed in the bed that morning, but now she seemed to be wrapped up in them like a mummy. She tried to move again, but Spike’s weight on her, one arm and one leg draped over her, along with the tangled sheet, thwarted her every effort. She’d been trying to not wake her sleeping husband, but things were getting dire. She had to get up.

“Spike?” she whispered, pressing on his shoulder lightly, trying to get him to roll off her. “I need up.”

A groan was the only reply from the sleeping man. He did not move.

“Spike … please, just …” Buffy pushed harder on his shoulder to turn him over, but that only made him snuggle against her closer and tighten his grip around her like a human-sized Venus fly trap.

She sighed, ready to shake him into full wakefulness when she thought of one other option. “Pickles,” she breathed against his ear.

Another groan rumbled from him, but, miracles of miracles, he let go of her and rolled over, putting his back to her. _Thank God!_

Buffy frantically wrestled with the sheets that were wrapped around not only her legs and torso but Spike’s as well, nearly falling onto the floor in her haste to get free of them and to the bathroom. She managed not to fall, finally pulling free and sprinting for the bladder relief promised in the sanctuary of the large bathroom.

_Ahhhh … heaven._

With that emergency handled, she retrieved their overnight bag from where Spike had dropped it next to the door and took it back into the bathroom with her. Closing the door, she turned on the water in the large, walk-in shower while pulling out her toiletries from the bag. A nice, long, hot shower was just what she needed to start the day, even if it was the middle of the afternoon. Maybe she could conjure a bit of that dream back to her mind. Why did they have to end just before getting to the really good bits?

She was immersed under the pounding spray of hot water, her eyes closed, facing the front wall of the cubicle when Spike stepped into the shower with her, making her jump in surprise.

“I swear I’m gonna get a collar with a bell on it for you,” she threatened, her heart skipping and racing in her chest.

Spike grinned, curling his tongue against his teeth. “Still got it, don’t I? Glad all the mystery’s not gone from our marriage.”

Buffy turned back around to the front of the shower, facing away from him. “We’ve only been officially married about 18 hours according to the great state of Nevada,” she reminded him.

“Mmmm,” he purred. “In that case, I reckon we need to consummate it so you can’t have it annulled.”

Buffy smiled as the warm, soothing water poured over her scalp and sluiced down her body like a liquid caress.  “Why, Mr. Pratt, whatever did you have in mind, my dear sir?” she drawled in her best southern belle accent.

Spike stepped up against her back and his hands joined the molten caress of the water, flowing over her skin like satin against silk. He leaned against her as he stroked her soft skin, roaming over the flat of her stomach, the soft curves of her hips, the round, heavy suppleness of her breasts, the yearning nipples that hardened beneath his touch.

His mouth was right near her ear when he spoke in a deep, rich rumble. “Well, my dear Mrs. Pratt, to start, I thought I’d rim out your sweet ass with my tongue and fingers,” he purred before dropping his lips against her neck and nibbling on that spot that made her mind blank and stars zoom across her vision. “Gonna do that until your legs tremble and your sweet pussy drips with need.”

“Oh … my …” she breathed as glittering, burning lust blossomed in her core, trying to remember what it was they were talking about and who she was supposed to be. “That sounds quite … crude and … and vulgar. What, pray tell, do you take me for?”

“Take you for a wanton, lustful woman,” Spike replied, sliding one hand down over her stomach and to the heaven waiting between her thighs. “Take you for someone who’ll scream and buck and cum like a bloody tsunami. Someone who’ll tremble and quake beneath me as I fuck her out of this world and into the next.”

“I dare say … that’s quite … indecent. I assure you, I am proper and refined,” Buffy replied even as her body began to quiver with desire.

“Are you then? Well, I reckon when I bend you over and shove my cock into that tight ass of yours, then your screams will be in perfect pitch, like an angel’s cry o’ rapture.”

Buffy gasped lightly as Spike’s finger slid between her folds, touching down gently on her clit, teasing her ever so softly. “I … I believe that sounds quite barbaric,” she breathed, pressing her ass back to trap his steely erection between their bodies. The hard, pulsing need of his cock never failed to quicken her heartbeat and light a fire in her belly, and this moment was no different.   

“Mmm… well, if ya think that’s barbaric, then how will you feel when I have you fuck that hot pussy with this little toy while I ravage your ass?” he wondered as he set a hot-pink, water-proof vibrator down on one of the porcelain shelves in the corner of the shower near her. “Know you need it hard and deep, my wife. I want t’ feel it inside you while I’m fucking you.”

“You … you would have me … I dare say … that sounds …” ‘Delicious’ was the word that came to Buffy’s mind. She tried to focus as Spike’s hands teased her to the brink of sanity, one gliding silkily over her breasts, the other slowly slipping in and out between her labia, raking lightly over her clit in the most crazy-making way possible.

“Sounds what, pet?” Spike prompted after a moment.

“Sounds … d… uh …d-dastardly.” She forced out the only ‘d’ word that she could think of that a sweet, innocent, newly-married southern belle would say.

“Mmmm,” Spike purred again. “You married a dastardly bastard, my sweet peach. Come over to the dark side, pet. We have dildos.”

Buffy grinned and almost laughed, unable to stay in character with that comment, and pressed back even harder against him. Spike pushed forward with his hips as the water glided down their bodies in a warm waterfall. His cock ached to be inside her, but was forced to be content with being pressed between them for now. He dropped his mouth to her neck again, nibbling and kissing, completing the trifecta of teasing that sent bolts of unrestrained lust flashing between her neck, her clit, and her breasts, licking her body with flames of desire. Thank goodness for the water pouring over her, otherwise she might just spontaneously combust right here.

“I declare,” Buffy drawled in mock horror, getting hold of her mirth. “I do not know what I was thinking marrying such a depraved scoundrel such as yourself!” 

“Thinkin’ you’ll get fucked mornin’, noon, and night like the debauched woman you are,” he growled against her skin before stepping back suddenly. He pulled her hips back and pressed down in the middle of her back, bending her over beneath the heavy downpour of the shower.

Buffy didn’t need to be urged further, spreading her legs as wide as they would go within the confines of the shower. She gripped the safety rail on the wall in front of her as she opened herself to him, her legs already beginning to tremble with just the promise of his tongue and fingers and cock inside her.

She heard a small ‘click’ and the smell of strawberries filled the damp air of the shower, then Spike’s slick, strawberry-flavored finger was teasing her puckered hole, slipping in and out gently, coating her with the sweet-scented slippery lube.

“Tease your pussy … wanna see you touching yourself,” he directed her in a gravelly rumble as he dropped to his knees behind her, spread her round ass cheeks, and pressed his tongue into her tight ass.

Buffy’s thighs quivered as his tongue swirled around her sensitive opening and she gasped when he pressed inside her. She slipped one hand between her legs and began to tease herself, as instructed. Her skin flushed and prickled beneath the sensory onslaught, waves of chill-bumps washing over her heated skin like bright, sparkling bursts of frozen fire.

“Already trembling,” Spike observed, pulling away for a moment. He bit down on her soft, round ass, leaving an impression of his teeth on her flesh and making Buffy buck against him.

“All in good time, pet,” he purred, resuming his task, rimming her ass with his tongue, then his slick fingers, opening her, teasing her, making her gasp and quiver in pleasure and need.

“God, Spike,” she moaned, getting lost in all the myriad sensations from the warm water beating down on her back, flowing in tickling rivers down her sides and dripping from the tips of her breasts, to her own fingers slipping and gliding over her clit, to Spike’s tongue and fingers slipping in and out of her ass.

“What do ya need, pet?”

“Need you … inside me,” Buffy breathed.

“Do ya, now?” he teased, pumping two fingers in and out of her puckered hole, coating her with the slippery lube, stretching her tight ring of muscles open for him. “Reckon I am inside you,” he pointed out, thrusting his fingers into her deeper.

Her body bucked and her ass tightened around his digits, attempting to pull his fingers deeper. “More … need more,” she gasped.

Spike rained kisses over the wet, sparkling globes of her ass as he continued fucking her, adding another finger to the mix and drawing another gasp and lurch from Buffy.

“God, Buffy … so fucking beautiful. I love you so much … fuck … want you … need t’ be inside you,” he groaned, taking another bite of her sweet, soft ass.

“Fuck me … Spike … please … now … fuck me now,” Buffy begged, matching his rhythm as she slipped her fingers inside her throbbing pussy with a growing sense of desperation.

She seemed to have forgotten the vibrator laying on the shelf not far from her, but Spike hadn’t. He shifted and grabbed it, clicking it on to the variable setting that buzzed in three long, strong bursts alternating with two shorter, softer ones – her personal favorite.

“Show me how to fuck you, pet,” he rasped, handing it to her before going back to slipping his fingers in and out of her slick, yearning ass.

Buffy pressed the vibrator against her clit and her legs quivered and trembled in time to the waves of pleasure it poured through her. Her back arched and strained as the flames inside her turned into lightning bolts of white-hot pleasure dancing through her body. And then, in the next moment, she shifted and slammed the dildo into her yearning, aching channel.

Buffy let out a short shriek of pleasure as it penetrated her, opening her and sending out its pulsing vibrations to all parts of her heated core.

“Show me … show me how you fuck that pussy,” Spike demanded, feeling the vibrations tickling his fingers through her body. “Show me what you need. How hard ya need to be fucked.”

“God … fuck …” Buffy moaned, grasping the safety bar even tighter for support as she pulled the vibrator out and slammed it back in one time before pumping it in and out of her slick pussy with wild abandon.

Spike matched her with his fingers, fucking her ass, feeling her body convulse and spasm around them as the pleasure of it all wrapped around her, catching her up in the tornado of bliss being poured over her.

Gasps and moans and wordless cries of pleasure filled the small enclosure, echoing back on them, covering them with a thick blanket of pure lust.

Deeper. Harder. Faster. More … just more!

Her scream of release was accompanied by her body bucking and jerking against him and her own hand, fucking herself to heaven as he watched and slammed his fingers into her ass as deep as they would go, drawing more shrieks of painful pleasure from her.  

“Yes! Yes! Fuck! Yes! God … fuck!” Buffy ranted as her body quaked and quivered with the rapture of the orgasm ripping through her.

Before she could come down from that first rocketing flight around the moon, Spike was standing behind her, more of the slick lube coating his cock, as he lined up with her juicy, sweet ass. He gripped her hips tightly, pulling her back against him as he jerked his hips forward in a brutal surge of lust. Buffy’s body tensed and jerked, her back arching into the painful pleasure of him as her mind blanked and her endorphins soared, taking her soul with them into the stratosphere.

Without any muffling spells like they had at home, the scream that filled the shower was sure to bring the police to their door, but neither of them cared in that moment. There was only hot flesh and a bottomless, carnal thirst for the other. A need to fuck and be fucked. A need to take and give. A need to fly apart, to explode, to race the stars, and crash into the sun. A need that no number of years together could diminish or sate. A need for the darkest corners of their souls to rejoice in the light of passion and love and unquenchable hunger.

Spike drove into her, hard and deep, with primal grunts of effort, impaling her, filling her body with his burning need. He took all she offered him, madly, lustfully, savagely. And Buffy took all that he offered, fiercely, wantonly, brazenly devouring his power as it morphed into unbridled pleasure.

Buffy’s ass slapped against Spike’s hard body, water splattering over them both with the ferocity of their coupling. His cock plunged into her, sweeping her clinging walls aside, thrusting with wild abandon, opening her tight ring of muscles to his will. Buffy finally remembered the wand in her hand and matched his movements and intensity, fucking her pussy as hard and deep as he fucked her ass.

The ripples of pleasure from the vibrator reached him through the thin walls separating the toy from his thrusting cock, adding to the overwhelming pleasure of being inside her, of feeling her body open for him and then contract around him like a vise. The power of her was intoxicating. The heat of her was a roaring wildfire he would never dream of taming. Her lust was a vast ocean which pulled him under, drowning him, and he never, ever wanted to be saved.

“Fuck, Buffy … so … fucking … good. Love you … love fucking you … love you … so … much,” he ground out between thrusts, driving into her with a burgeoning need to mark her, to fill her with his cum, to empty his balls into the depths of her supple, willing, passionate, wanton body. His woman. His wife. His mate. _His_.

“Spike! Yes! Fuck me! Harder … fucking … Jesus … yes! God … cumming … fucking ... cumming … Spike! God! Yesss!!!” she shrieked, her hand stilling on the vibrator, holding it deep inside her quaking, spasming channel, sending pulses of extraordinary pleasure bursting out to all parts of her mind, body, and spirit.

Spike roared his acknowledgement, letting go of all control. His jizz blasted into her with unbridled passion and need, thrusting his throbbing, swelling cock into her several more times, driving his cum deep into the sweet, hot, amazing woman he loved.

They both slid to the tile floor of the shower as one, rubbery as snakes coiled around each other, still joined. The vibrator, unaware that its job was done, still pulsed and rippled post-coital pleasure through them. They panted and gasped beneath the still-hot waterfall that rained down on them both, their bodies trembling with aftershocks that surged through them like tiny bolts of lightning.

“So,” Buffy asked after a few minutes, her voice light and conversational. “Did you sleep well?”

Spike’s rumbling laugh filled the shower, his arms tightening their hold around her as they sprawled on the tile. “Like a dream,” he replied, raining kisses over every square inch of hot, wet skin he could reach. “But, wakin’ up made those dreams come true.”

Buffy turned to look back over her shoulder and their lips met beneath the thankfully still-warm spray of the shower.

“Mine too,” she whispered against his mouth as the kiss broke. “Mine too.”

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

“Look what’s on!!” Buffy exclaimed later as she sat on the bed in a white, fluffy hotel robe devouring a mid-afternoon breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, _and_ waffles, along with a carafe of coffee.

The police, thankfully, had not shown up, but room service was quite prompt.

Spike came out of the bathroom with a towel around his hips, wiping the last vestiges of shaving cream from his face.  “OI! Some o’ that grub is mine!” he objected, tossing the smaller towel he’d been using on his face back onto the floor of the bathroom.

“I’m saving you some!” she asserted. “Kind of …” she added, placing a plate that had what was left of the waffles and a couple of strips of bacon back on his tray.

“But look! ‘Monsters, Inc.’ is on,” she continued, pointing at the TV. “You remember? We watched it on our very first date.”

Spike walked up to the bed and snagged two sausages off _her_ plate, dipped them in her maple syrup and began nibbling on them. “As I recall, you slept through it and I watched you sleep. Clem and Dawn watched the movie.”

Buffy shrugged. “Still … isn’t it kinda romantic? We can watch it now, on our honeymoon.”

“They got a hundred channels of porn, but ya wanna watch ‘Monsters, Inc’?” he asked incredulously as he poured himself a cup of coffee, added cream and enough sugar to send an elephant into diabetic shock. He brought his coffee with him, sitting down on the bed next to her. He picked up a strip of bacon off her plate next and devoured that.

“Hey! There’s yours,” she objected, pointing her fork at the other tray of half-devoured waffles and two bacon strips that she’d reluctantly saved for him.  “And, yes. It’s sweet and … I don’t know … like karmic or something.

“Anyway, you just got so incredibly laid that you couldn’t walk for ten minutes! Why do you want to watch porn?”

Spike shrugged. “See if I can pick up any pointers.”

Buffy arched a brow at him as the movie started on the wide-screen TV mounted on the wall opposite the bed. “Seriously? Spike, if you get any better, my legs may never function properly again!”

Spike grinned, biting his bottom lip sumptuously. “Might be worth it,” he suggested.

“You’d have to do all the housework,” Buffy pointed out, shaking her head, chuckling to herself as she finished up her breakfast. She put her tray on the floor and settled back against the headboard to watch the movie.

Spike laughed. “That’s a point. Best not get too good, then, eh?” Spike brought his tray of food with him as he mimicked her, propping himself up against the headboard next to her to eat and watch the very non-porn movie with her.

“Maybe we could watch something about how to clean the house and you could pick up some pointers on that?” Buffy suggested cheekily.

“Don’t be a wiseass,” Spike chastised her. “That’s my job.”

Buffy laughed and curled up next to him as he ate. She was asleep before the title sequence for the movie had run completely through.

**** X-X-X-X-X ****

Spike batted at the bug that had landed on his temple without opening his eyes. He’d fallen asleep not long after finishing his breakfast, curling up with Buffy as the movie played to while away the afternoon sated on carbs and mind-blowing sex. He groaned in annoyance when another hard-shelled bug smacked him in the face, once again brushing it away with a hand without opening his eyes. When a third bug hit him, he growled in exasperation and sat up, looking around to find the source of the sudden influx of bugs that was disturbing his slumber.

Buffy sat cross-legged on the end of the bed facing him, grinning as she tossed another M&M at him, hitting him right on the nose as he shook the sleep from his mind.

“What the bloody fuck…” he groaned, picking up the little candy and tossing it back at her.

She caught it in her mouth and chewed it up, still grinning devilishly. “I got you a present,” she told him.

“Better be worth disturbin’ my beauty sleep over, ya barmy bint,” he groused, rubbing his eyes tiredly, trying to get the sleep out of them. “If I turn into an ogre, be your fault, it will.”

Buffy hit him with another M&M.

“If that’s the present, I can tell ya right now I’m gonna turn ya over my knee and paddle your arse,” he threatened, sitting back against the headboard and glaring at her as he picked up the dropped candy and again tossed it back at her.

Buffy missed catching it with her mouth, but nabbed it before it hit the floor. She popped it in her mouth, laughing and waggling her brows at him. “Well, as much as I’d like to see you try that, M&Ms aren’t the present.”

Buffy crawled about half-way up the bed and bounced gleefully down in a sitting position next to him, still facing him. He just then realized that she was dressed in shorts and a tank top. She’d been out while he’d been sleeping, obviously.

“What is it, then? Don’t tell me ya got me a tattoo, cos, joke’s on you, pet, they aren’t transferrable.”

Buffy laughed. “Nope, it’s not that, but it is just as permanent and even harder to get rid of … not that you’d want to.”

Spike’s brows furrowed. He felt his ears, but, no she hadn’t pierced them while he’d been asleep.

“Too tired to play twenty questions, Slayer. What’s the riddle?”

Buffy handed him a long, thin, rectangular box, like something a bracelet would come in, still grinning.

His brows still furrowed, Spike lifted the lid. At first he didn’t understand what he was looking at, he had expected … well … not this.

“There’s good news and bad news,” Buffy told him when he just stared into the box, unmoving and speechless. “The bad news is, you’ll have to drink your own alcoholic beverages for the next nine months. The good news is, you’ll now have enough for a fencing team. You’re gonna have to teach them that, though, cos, fencing is so not my thing.”

“I-I don’t understand,” Spike muttered, looking up from the pregnancy test stick in the box, which clearly said ‘pregnant’ in the little display window, to her.

“Ummm … okay, which part?” Buffy asked, bemused. “There are three on a fencing team – I looked it up. We have two now, so one more makes … say it with me … _three_.”

“B-but you said … you … I … we …” Spike stammered, looking back down at the stick and the word ‘pregnant’ that stood out like a shining beacon in his mind, blinding him.

“We’re having another baby,” Buffy explained as if talking to a dim child, taking the box from his hand and setting aside. “That happens when a mommy and a daddy …”

“Bloody hell,” Spike interrupted, turning to look at her, his eyes going wide as it all clicked into place in his befuddled mind. “You’re pregnant! Bloody hell! You … you’re havin’ a baby! _We’re_ having a baby!”

Buffy laughed and nodded. “We’re having a baby.”

“How … how are we havin’ a baby?” Spike asked next, his face screwed up in a mixture of confusion and rapture.

“Well, the normal way is…”

Spike waved a hand in the air, stopping her. “No! Your … your pills … they … didn’t work?” he asked, still perplexed.

“Umm… I might’ve stopped taking them a couple of months ago,” Buffy explained.

“You bloody wicked, underhanded, devious, sneaky, beautiful, wonderful, amazing woman!” Spike exclaimed, pulling her toward him and capturing her lips in a gleeful, celebratory kiss.

He pushed her back suddenly, his eyes still wide, hands gripping her shoulders. “How long have you known?”

“About ten minutes?” she guessed, still smiling.

“B-but your cycle … it’s not even due until—”

“With these new tests you don’t have to wait that long,” she explained. “I just … well, I had a sudden craving for M&Ms and …”

“Bloody hell,” Spike repeated. “Just like with Annie and Junior,” he breathed, the reality of it all sinking in. “You’re bloody preggers!” he announced, pulling her back in and kissing her fervently.

Buffy laughed against him, wrapping her arms around his neck as he knocked her onto her back and rolled them over, ending up laying atop her. He pulled away, sliding down her body until he could address her stomach. He lifted up her shirt to reveal her still flat tummy and touched a kiss to it, then another, and another, bathing her abdomen in joyful kisses.

“Hello, Dilbert, I’m yer dad,” he whispered to her stomach, making Buffy laugh even harder.

“We are not naming it ‘Dilbert’,” she insisted.

“Sorry about this morning, mate,” he murmured to her tummy. “Didn’t mean t’ be so rough on ya. Didn’t know you were there.”

Buffy laughed. “Dilbert has two Slayers for parents, I’m sure the little urchin can handle some jostling,” she assured Spike, reaching down to cup her husband’s gleeful face between her palms.

“Bloody hell, Buffy,” Spike rasped, looking up at her, his voice growing thick with emotion as it all sunk in. “I love you.”

Buffy blinked back tears that suddenly sprung to her eyes. “I love you, too, my sweet, wonderful man.”

“We’re havin’ a baby…” he muttered again, his voice so full of love and wonder and awe that Buffy wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, so she did both.

“God, I love you, William,” she choked out through her tears as Spike moved back up her body and pulled her into a hug that threatened to crush her. She returned it with just as much vehemence, just as much passion, love, and joy.

“I love you so bloody much I’m about t’ explode with it,” he replied as he buried his face against her shoulder, his own tears of joy falling freely.

“Don’t do that … Dilbert needs her dad. Plus, it’s so hard to get the blood out of the carpets.”

Spike laughed and nodded. “Ya reckon Dilbert’s a girl, then?”

Buffy bit her lip. “I don’t know, baby. It doesn’t matter. It’s ours.”

“We’re havin’ a baby,” Spike rasped again, his voice still full of astonishment, not releasing her. How could his love for this woman keep growing? Would it ever stop expanding, becoming deeper, wider, and higher?

No … no, it wouldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter is all that’s left! I can’t believe we’re here! What an amazing ride it’s been with everyone! I had planned on doing an ‘epilogue’ to wrap up a couple of loose ends, but, after much reflection (and writing two different epilogues), I think that I’ll leave that off and leave this story open to revisit again in the future. Hopefully you all won’t mind too much. 
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, for sticking with the story through thick and thin and saccharine sweetness. I’d love to hear from you! Please let me know your thoughts! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


	100. Last Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You think we’re dancing? It’s all we’ve ever done.

* * *

 

Spike sat in the bed next to his sleeping angel, leaning back against the headboard, his leather journal on his lap. The lights and sounds of the city filtered in through the glass doors that led out onto the small balcony of their room, but he had no attention for that tonight. They’d stayed in all day and night, sleeping, watching TV, making love, talking, laughing, and suggesting names for the new addition, since, apparently ‘Dilbert’ had been vetoed. They’d ordered room service and Spike actually got to eat some of his own meal, though Buffy had stolen his chocolate brownie.

He’d hunted down every vending machine with M&Ms within the hotel and bought them all for Buffy, coming back with his pockets and arms full of the packs of colorful candies. They’d tossed them at each other, trying to catch them in their mouths from various positions on the bed. They sat across from each other – quite easy; the thrower closed their eyes – a little harder; both of them closed their eyes – nearly impossible; they laid on their backs side-by-side and tossed them in the air to each other – a challenge; they laid on their backs with their heads at opposite ends of the bed and tickled each other’s feet while throwing and catching – completely impossible, but it left them breathless with laughter, nonetheless.

He was pretty sure there were several hundred colorful candies currently stuck to the back of his body where they’d gotten lost in the sheets of the bed. The thought gave him a wicked vision of Buffy removing them from his skin with her lips and tongue and teeth and …

Spike snorted softly, reaching a hand out to smooth her golden hair as she slept. She was so beautiful, peaceful, and even innocent lying there. The white sheets that tangled around her body conjured visions of an artful, still-life masterpiece. Hints of soft, bronze skin peeked out from the silken drape of the fabric. The swell of a breast, the edge of a nipple, the top of one thigh just where it met her round ass, the curve of a shapely calf, the pink nail polish on her toes. The artist teased and taunted, showing enough beauty to send imaginations sailing on seas of wonder.

Spike couldn’t help but smile, letting his eyes roam over her still form. His angel. His wicked, wiseass, wonderful wife. The last years with her and their growing family had been a dream come true for him, well, for both of them, really. A dream that had died for them both long ago, but, just like them, had been resurrected from the ashes.

“Whatcha doin’?” she rasped, her voice rough from sleep and laughter.

Spike’s eyes swept up to hers, the soft smile that had been playing on his lips curving into something more salacious.  “Wonderin’ how many candies are stuck to yer sweet ass and how they’d taste mixed with your cum.”

Buffy laughed lightly, lifting her arms overhead and her legs out straight, her back arching in a delicious, languorous stretch. The sheet moved with her, shifting to expose new curves and skin to his eyes, while covering parts that he had been admiring. A long, deep moan fell from her lips as she stretched her body to wakefulness – it was one of Spike’s favorite sounds. She turned then, her hand reaching for his cock as she suggested, “One way to find out.”

Her hand came into contact not with flesh, but with soft leather and smooth paper. Her eyes glittered as she quickly sat up and pulled the journal from his lap. “You’ve been writing … about Dilbert?” she asked gleefully as she looked down at the page.

Spike reached for it, trying to pull it back. “It’s not ready, pet,” he objected.

Buffy clicked her tongue. “You always say that,” she insisted, wrapping a hand over the journal to stop him from taking it.

Spike sighed and rolled his eyes, pulling his hand away. She was, of course, right. He never thought they were ready for her to see. “Not really ‘bout Dilbert … just … ramblings.”

Buffy smiled up at him. “I love your ramblings,” she assured him, before looking back down at the page and beginning to read aloud…

 

_I dared not dream within my tomb_

_That love would blossom in your womb_

_You tangled me within your spell_

_And into heaven I gladly fell_

_A glance, a touch, a passionate kiss_

_I was yours alone, your heart, my bliss_

_The music plays, like gentle waves_

_But for how long, not one can say_

_So, when my Earthly dance is through_

_And I am again, parted from you_

_It will be these moments of still surrender_

_That I will cherish, evermore remember_

_Wordless sighs, moments so replete_

_In your arms, my soul complete_

_When again we touch, after seasons apart_

_You’ll know my love, my soul, my heart_

_For in the coldest, darkest place_

_In another realm, in deepest space_

_I’ll seek you alone, your love, your grace_

_For one last dance, within my embrace_

_My dearest Buffy, my thrice-wed wife_

_I take your hand in every life_

_So as you sway amidst time and chance_

_Do not forget, save me a dance_

_The last dance_

_The very last dance_

_Is mine._

 

By the end of the page her voice had grown thick, cracking with emotion, and she felt tears rolling down her cheeks. She sniffed and swiped at her eyes, clearing her vision before reaching over and plucking the pen out of Spike’s hand.

Spike’s brows furrowed as he watched her. Flashes of the past haunted him still, seeming like only yesterday, though it was, in fact, over a century ago. He wasn’t sure why they were so vivid, why they’d stuck so solidly in his psyche, perhaps because they happened so soon before he had met is fate with Dru? He swallowed hard, watching Buffy, fighting back those feelings of insecurity that his boorish ‘friends’ had seared into his heart. Did she hate it so much that she was going to scribble all over it, mark it out, destroy it?

But no, she didn’t. Instead she turned to the back of the journal where she knew he did drafts and put down ideas and doodles. These were the pages he _really_ never wanted anyone to see, but he’d let her look through them before. She’d actually loved some of these first drafts and rambles better than the ones he’d polished to a showroom-floor gleam.

Spike began to breathe again, berating himself for ever thinking that Buffy would hurt him like that. She’d only ever encouraged and praised his silly poems, no matter how bad he knew they were.

Buffy sat back against the headboard with her legs crossed Indian-style and bent over the journal, letting her long hair fall down to obscure what she was writing.

“Buff—” Spike began, but she held up a single finger, and he desisted, resigned to wait and watch with curiosity and still a little trepidation.

He watched her write and then cross things out, write again, stop and ponder, and write again. She carried on this way for some time, at times looking up in thought, tapping the end of the pen against her lips or contorting her face into a grimace as she tried to birth the words onto the page. He didn’t interrupt her again, but simply watched, picking colorful candies up from the sheets and snacking as he waited.

Finally, she turned back to the page where his poem had been and, on the opposite page, she began copying her final product, flipping back and forth several times as she went.  At last she looked up, beaming at him. “Poems are hard … all that rhymey stuff makes my brain hurt,” she announced. “It’s, like, my first since tenth grade English Comp, so don’t laugh, okay?”

Spike bit down on his lip adorably and nodded solemnly. “Never,” he assured her as she handed the book back to him, her reply penned in round, feminine curves on the page opposite his left-handed slanting script.

Spike looked down and read silently, not saying anything for many long moments, long enough to make Buffy squirm nervously.

_You are my man and I your wife_

_I’ll find your heart in every life_

_You fill the cracks of my broken soul_

_With peace and joy, you make me whole_

_The dance we dance, knows no end_

_We never break, but sway and bend_

_So when the music starts to play_

_I promise that I’ll find my way_

_To your side and take your hand_

_I am your wife, you are my man_

“I mean, I know it’s not as good as yours,” she said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, finally making him look up from the page.

His eyes seemed even bluer as they shimmered with unshed tears. “It’s perfect, Buffy,” he whispered, his heart swollen so large with joy that it was now lodged in his throat.

Buffy’s smile returned, soft and loving. “Is it?”

“As perfect as you, pet,” he agreed, clearing his throat and blinking back the emotions from his eyes.

Buffy laughed. “Yeah … not sure if that’s an actual compliment,” she teased, still smiling.

Spike laughed too, setting the journal onto the bedside table. He took the pen back from her and put it with the book before turning back to her, his expression awestruck, loving, as soft and reverent as Buffy had ever seen him.

“No one’s ever written a poem for me before,” he admitted. His heart swelled again. He didn’t know how much love and joy it could hold without bursting. Certainly more than he’d ever thought he’d find; more than he ever thought would be given back to him. “It’s …”

“Effulgent?” Buffy suggested coyly.

“Effulgent,” Spike agreed, grinning wider, as they both seemed to move as one on the bed, stretching out, coming together, lips meeting, bodies nestling into each other.

Buffy rolled onto her back, pulling him with her, her soft, sweet curves wrapping around his sharp, hard lines.

“Dance with me,” she murmured against his lips, her fingers trailing gently up and down his chiseled back, brushing the colorful M&Ms from his skin as she went.

“You think we’re dancing?” he whispered back, shifting his hips within her embrace, finding that place that he always longed to be: within her depths, surrounded by her strong, supple love and desire.

Buffy smiled against his mouth. “It’s all we’ve ever done.”

THE END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END? I can’t believe we’re here! What an amazing ride it’s been with everyone! I had planned on doing an ‘epilogue’ to wrap up a couple of loose ends, but, after much reflection (and writing two different epilogues), I think that I’ll leave that off and leave this story open to revisit again in the future. Hopefully you all won’t mind too much. 
> 
> I am going to post one more ‘chapter’ on this story soon with ALL 101 banners in one place and in order – a gallery of the amazing talent that PaganBaby has shared with us. I can’t thank her enough for doing them all! She’s absolutely effulgent! 
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, for sticking with the story through thick and thin and saccharine sweetness. I’d love to hear from you! Please let me know your thoughts! 
> 
> Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her banner-making creativity and skillz are so amazingly impressive, I can’t even find the words! I can't thank her enough for doing them for me! Love them so much!! Her beta skillz are everything I could ever hope for and I am so blessed to have her help.
> 
> Thanks to Holi117, also, for one last look over the chapter after so much fiddling, still, any mistakes here are mine because I can never stop fiddling!


End file.
